Rebel Yell
by lilhanna
Summary: AU! No zombies... After Daryl gets picked up from the side of the road by a sketchy woman, it seems as though things in his life just go south from there. Rated M for obscenities. Warning: slight horrific scenes. (Pretty much a Daryl whump story.)
1. Chapter 1

**This is my first fanfiction story ever, so if I sound a little sketchy, that's why. I'm still trying to get a grasp on how I want to write. I hope you enjoy, review and let me know. Constructive criticism is welcome. **

**I do not own The Walking Dead or any of their characters.**

* * *

With silent breaths of anticipation, he aligns the crosshairs with the lungs of the deer, his finger on the trigger, ready to squeeze at the right moment. It remains unaware of his presence.

He had been stalking this deer for a while now, since early this morning in fact. He was hoping to snag a deer to keep him and his brother going for a while, and this beauty would do just that. Not too skinny, but not too fat either. It's just right, as Goldilocks would say.

Nanoseconds before he squeezes the trigger, the doe jumps to the left, startled, causing the bolt to miss its mark by mere centimeters and fly forward into the depths of the woods. The deer stands frozen in its spot, white tail flashing wildly, and locks its gaze with his. And then it bolts off in the opposite direction on his truck.

"Shit," Daryl mutters under his breath. He looks around, wondering what spooked the deer, but sees nothing obvious. He considers maybe it was him that scared the deer, and can almost hear his brother now. _Gettin' kinda rusty there lil' D. Maybe if you weren't so busy doin' women's work, runnin' around doin' shit no man has no business doin' ya wouldn't be so damn out of practice. _

"What the hell you even talking 'bout? At least I get the damn bills paid!" Daryl yells to the voice.

He shakes his head, trying to clear it. _Damn I think I'm goin' crazy. _Talking to the voices in his head won't help him track a deer, so he pushing all the irritating thought of Merle and his unhelpfulness aside. He slings his crossbow onto his back and follows the deer's trail, not even bothering to look for his bolt, knowing it isn't worth the time.

He tracks the deer for about an hour before deciding it's too late to keep going if he wants to make it back before dark. He needs to get back home so he can get some sleep before he gets up for work in the morning.

* * *

He walks down the road, finding it to be the faster way back to his truck. He thinks about what he's going to eat tonight, considering he doesn't have much in the way of food, but is knocked out of his thoughts by the distant sound of a car approaching. He looks back briefly, as if he really cares who it is, but ignores the car and continues as he was.

As it gets closer he notices that it starts slowing down. When the car is rolling beside him in speed with his steady gait, he looks over to see the tinted window rolling down. _What the hell would anyone want to be saying to a Dixon out in the middle of the boondocks?_ He immediately puts his guard up, suspecting it to be some self absorbed asshole just trying to get a rise out of the town's resident hot headed, white trash redneck.

But that's not what he faces when the window rolls down. No, as a matter of fact, it's not even anyone that he could put a name to. And he can't help but stare. Beyond the window is a pretty woman with long, brown curly hair with big, beautiful hazel eyes and a bright smile. She's not looking at him with the usual look of loathing granted to the Dixons; instead, she's looking at him with a look of curiosity and something else he can't quite identify.

"What are ya doin' out here in the middle of nowhere, stranger?" she asks with a hint of humor in her unwavering smile. _That's odd._

He half considers just ignoring her and continue walking, it's not like he doesn't already have the reputation of being a rude asshole, but he answers anyway with a short, "Huntin'."

"Don't look like you're huntin' to me. Looks like you're tryin' to get somewhere. Maybe I can help. Ya want a lift?"

"No. I don' need no help," he answers shortly, hand grasping tightly to his sling. He really didn't need any help. He's always done this himself and doesn't see the point of having help now.

"Oh, nonsense. You look like you're about to fall over. You must've been walkin' for miles. Why don't I give you a lift... to wherever yer goin'. So I can give yer fine ass a rest," she says with a smirk.

He looks over at her incredulously, a sneer masking his confusion. _Is this bitch really flirting with me? Who the hell flirts with a Dixon? __A weird person, that's who. _"I said I'm fine," he says stubbornly.

"Well you can either get in the car and I can drive you to wherever yer goin' and you'll get there a lot faster, _or_... I can just drive behind you the whole way because quite frankly, I think I'll enjoy the view," she says, waving her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

He just stares at her for a few moments, walking with her following along beside him. Her eyes portray nothing but pure honesty. He could seriously picture her driving along beside him for the entire walk back to his truck, wasting gas like a dumbass. _This bitch is serious. _Maybe if he just cuts through the woods he could get away from this chick. But the nagging ache traveling down his spine and to his feet reminds him he's not as young as he used to be. Maybe just this once he could accept a little ride. What could it hurt?

He looks over at the girl again, trying to gage whether she is trustworthy. With a resigned sigh, he walks up to the door, opening it as soon as she stops. He stares at her again, thinking before he gets in. _Is this really happening, is it some sort of trick? _He half expects some prank show's TV host to pop out and yell, "Surprise! Ah, man, I can't believe you fell for that. Man, she don't want trash like you in her car!" He could almost hear it, the laughing and taunting coming from the film crew.

Her cocky voice brought him back to reality. "You gonna just stare at me all day, handsome, ro are you gonna get in? Hmm?"

He swings his crossbow off his shoulder and sets it on the floorboard before swinging himself into the seat and shutting the door. She starts driving again and the cab falls silent except for the low hum of music, something he doesn't even like. It's that new pop music or some shit like that.

"So, where you headed?" her voice chimes out.

"My truck," he answers vaguely, not in a talkative mood.

"'My truck,'" she says playfully, mocking his raspy voice, making Daryl raise an eyebrow. "Well... where might this truck be?" she asks, amused.

"About five miles down this road. Then turn right down a dirt road," he says, pointing his finger in the direction they're going.

"Alllright then."

They sit quietly for a few minutes. He doesn't look over at her. He just keeps his head turned away, looking out the passenger window. He chews on the skin of his thumb as his thoughts overtake him again, his other hand resting on the butt of his crossbow. His mind drifts to the strange girl sitting a mere three feet away, who, for some reason, wanted to help him out.

He wonders where she came from, and He's surprises himself by asking, "Where d'you come from?" He's not one for initiating conversation.

She glances over at him and graces him with her bright smile. "Louisiana, born and raised. The reason I'm here is because I needed to get away. Ya know?" Daryl grunts in understanding. "The family was gettin' a bit too much. I needed a place that's quite and laid back. She casts a longer look a Daryl, one that he can't quite decipher the meaning to. Then she smiles that bright smile again, which makes him feel a bit uncomfortable. _This chick is an odd one. _Daryl shakes his head.

"Turn down that dirt road there," he says, pointing over to the right lazily as he notices they're almost to the road he parked his truck on.

When his blue Ford pickup is visible in the distance the girl looks over again. "That your ride?" He just grunts in conformation. "Nice." She smiles again. "I never caught your name, handsome." Daryl looks over at her and seriously considers making up a name. _But why? _There really would be no point. Most everyone already thinks he's an asshole, what would he be trying to hide? The least he could do was tell the one person, apart from a view, that's been nice to him in this God forsaken town his real name.

"Daryl Dixon."

She pulls over by his truck. "Nice to meet you Daryl," she sticks her hand out and after a few seconds of hesitation he awkwardly shakes it, "and I'm Satin, Satin Kingsley."

Daryl lets go of her hand, grabs his crossbow, and opens the door to step out. "Thanks... fer the ride," he mutters.

"No problem. Hey, maybe I'll see you around town," she says with a laugh. Daryl slams her car door shut and walks over to his truck. He gets in and places his crossbow on the passenger seat. "Yeah, maybe," he mutters to himself as he drives away.

* * *

Satin sits back in the driver's seat and watches Daryl turn around and drive away to the main road while smiling to herself. She really hopes they'll meet again, if not by chance, she'll find one way or another.


	2. Chapter 2

**I want to thank my friend, Amanda, for betaing my story. Please tell me what y'all think. **

* * *

He's in a sour mood; nothing goes to plan. Any apprentice or coworker brave enough to be around him treaded lightly as to not irritate their supervisor any further and face his wrath. The day didn't _begin_ out this crappy, but it slowly deteriorated into one hell of a shitty day.

* * *

He's awoken from a moderately okay night of sleep by his alarm clock; Merle was quiet for once which lead him to believe he came home alone, or maybe he just didn't come home. He lays there for a moment rubbing his face, willing himself the inspiration to actually leave his bed.

With a groan he throws the blanket off of him and ambles to the bathroom down the hall, not being fully awake. After he gets to the bathroom he empties his bladder. When he's washing his hands he chances a look up at his reflection in the mirror. He can't help but grimace. He's always hated seeing himself, anytime, whether it's in a mirror or in a picture. He hates what he sees.

A rough looking man with a tired face, long, shaggy, brown hair and piercing blue eyes looks back at him. It's not his dad's eye, for his eyes were green, but his mom's staring back at him. And he hates it, the reminder of the mother that was never really there for him. He hates the haunted and tired look that he sees in those eyes. The looks they betray his many insecurities; he tries hiding it with scowls and mean glares. And for the most part it works, which he's thankful, but there are the odd occasion when he catches someone looking at him with a look he absolutely despises. _Pity_. That is one thing, among many others, that he does not need. Or want.

He finishes washing his hand and goes back to his room to put on his work cloths. And he heads to the kitchen to cook himself some breakfast and fix some lunch for later. But to Daryl's dismay, he's greeted with and empty fridge, nothing in the fridge that's in the way of food. _Well, damnit all._ So he goes to plan b and decides he'll just have some cereal. When he picks up the Cheerios he finds that the box is empty as well. As well as the next box. _What the hell!? We had food yesterday._

"Merle!" Daryl yells throwing the boxes down in the trash with a huff. He stomps down the hall to Merle's bedroom. "Goddamnit, Merle! What the hell? Did you eat all our food?" Daryl asks throwing his door open.

Merle just rolls over and grunts out something incoherent. Daryl grimaces. Thankfully, most of his body is under the sheets because the image of a naked Merle isn't something he really wants to be graced with all day.

Daryl sighs and shakes his head. "Dumbass." He shuts his door and heads for the kitchen.

Since there wasn't any food at home and judging by the time from his cell phone he wouldn't have time to get any fast-food. He'll just go without until lunch break, and then maybe he can get something.

* * *

He's working on the electrical wiring in the new school building that was built for the town and he keeps finding himself on jobs with wiring fucked to shit because the person that was working before him didn't know what the hell they were doin'. Or they were addin' all this fancy shit spending all their time on it, and then finding out they didn't even do it right. Then there's the other workers coming up to him for help because they got a problem with _their_ jobs and it's up to him to figure it out. Then he has to go and fix the problems, which takes him well over lunch time. He would have cut for lunch and had a brake, but he knew if he did that he'd have to work on it for another day. _Why do tomorrow what you can do today?_

Daryl's moodiness may stem from the fact that he's been working nonstop on an empty stomach since that morning without stopping for a cigarette break, but everyone's idiotic notions and theories may also have to do with it. It almost seems that on days like these everybody keeps screwing shit up, (sometimes he wonders if they might be doing it on purpose) and that he's the only one who actually knows how to get anything done.

After everything gets rapped up for the day, Daryl goes into his work trailer and finally lights up a cigarette. Inhaling deeply and holding it in, letting it calm his nerves. He basks in the glory of the air condition, the air cooling his sweaty skin, and its glorious contrast to working out in the sweltering, humid heat.

Going over to his desk, he sits down and leans back, letting his tense muscle relax a bit. After a moment or two he leans forward with a groan and takes out his time book he keeps in the drawer, and gets to work updating all his workers times for today.

His stomach growls at him miserably. "Shut Up! I ain't got time for ya naggin'." He gripes at his stomach while finishing up his right up.

He takes out his cell phone from his pants pocket and calls his boss, Jon Wesley. He gives him a report about how much of the work was done today. They say their byes and he hangs up. Daryl sits back in his chair and all the annoying things that happened during the day come rushing back to him, making him his blood pressure rise from annoyance all over again. He takes a calming breath and thinks about what he needs to do now. The persistent rumble in his belly reminds him that he should probably eat something before he does anything else.

He considers all the fast food places, knowing that going home would be pointless, and finally decided on Sonic. He puts the time book back in the drawer and turns everything off and locks up, cheering up just the tiniest bit from the concept of actually getting some food.

The drive doesn't take long, maybe about five minutes down the road. He pulls into a vacant spot and the workers voice cuts out when he pushes the button to order. "Welcome to Sonic, may I take your order?"

"Yeah, uh.… I want a… number one with mustard, onion rings, an' a large Dr. Pepper. And don't forget the Ketchup." The worker reads back his order and tells him his price and he digs out some money from his wallet and patiently waits for the waiter or waitress to come give him his food. He listens to the local hard rock station while blowing out smoke rings for a small source of entertainment.

Ten minutes later the waitress arrives with his food. She looks young; probably a college student trying to pay off student loans. Her nametag says Penelope Sanders. He doesn't know her, but she looks vaguely familiar. Where he could've seen her before he has no clue, but you can't live in a town with a population this small without seeing everyone at least once.

She stops at his rolled down window and looks at him, her eyes widen just a bit when she realizes who she's waiting on. Speaking with an almost shy voice she says. "Here's your order: A number one with mustard, onion rings, and… a large Dr. Pepper. Your ketchup should be in the bag." She gives a nervous smile as he takes the bag and drink. "That'll be $6.75, sir." He hands her a ten dollar bill. She works the change out and hands it out to him, but is stopped by Daryl holding his hand up.

"No." She freezes, uncertain by his action. "You keep it." Daryl says a little softer sensing her unease.

She takes her hand back and stares at him in surprise, then looks at the money. She looks back to Daryl and smiles a little. "Thank you. Have a nice day, Mr. Dixon." Daryl just grunts and flicks the ashes off his cigarette out the window while she runs off to get back to her job.

* * *

After he stuffs his face he goes to the grocery store, his least favorite thing to do when he's in town. It involves too much confrontation, glares, and suspicious looks. _Like I ain't like everyone else who has to buy things to live off of. Probably think I should be livin' in a one room shack shittin' in an outhouse in the backyard out in the middle of the woods. _Daryl scoffs at his thoughts about people's misconceived notions of how the Dixon's live, "Assholes."

He pulls up into the parking lot of Kroger's, already dreading leaving the sanctity of his company work truck. He parks and steps out to head to the automatic sliding doors. He mentally goes through his mind what he and Merle'll need for at least the next two weeks. He grabs a buggy and makes a round around the grocery store, grabbing the necessities first such as; milk, cereal, bread. He stops by the meat section considering his options. He didn't get that deer a few days ago, so that meant they didn't have any meat in the freezer. They ate the last of their deer meat last week. And he wanted some type of meat to have, so he eventually decided on buying hamburger meat.

"Daryl!" Startled, Daryl's head whirls around to face the source of the voice. "Hey, Daryl. Fancy meetin' you here." A young lady's walking towards him.

It takes him a few seconds for him to recognize the girl; he honestly forgot that she even existed, having other shit to worry about. He scratches the back of his head in consternation. _Agh.. What was this girl's name? Sum'm weird like_… _Statton?... Slatton?.. Nah.. that don't sound right. It was, uh.. 'Sa' sum'm. Satin! That sounds right. _He realizes he's just standing there looking at her so he gives her nod before turning around to grab the meat and put it in his buggy. Satin takes that as a signal to keep speaking.

"You must've just got off work. I just got off of work myself, thought I'd buy myself some last minute groceries before I headed home. I work at that lil' dinner over there, across the street." She says pointing an estimated direction, smiling at him. "Where do you work?" She asks looking at him with her big sparkling eyes but he ignores them.

He's grasping tightly to the handlebar with both hands, he really wants to get everything he needs so he can get home and relax on his recliner nursing a cold beer, not stand around all day making conversation with some chick. "I have shit to do, so if ya don' mind…" he begins walking away when her voice stops him.

"Hey!" She walks around and stands in front of his buggy in an attempt to stop him and crosses her arms, eyes on fire. "I asked you a question." She says with a huff that makes nostrils flair. Daryl cocks an eye brow at her. _Wow, okay._

He backs up to go around here, "yeah, well... I plea the 5th." Satin makes a grab for his buggy, but he pulls it out of her reach. He has every intention to just keep walking but she asks something that makes him freeze in place.

"What if I asked you out on a date?" Satin's voice pauses, waiting for a response, while he just stands there frozen. "Okay, maybe not a date, but like a night out so when can get to know one another?"

He slowly turns around to look at her. "Why?" He couldn't possibly understand why anyone would want to be spending time with him. Sometimes even _he _wouldn't want to be spending time with him.

"_Why?"_ She asks incredulously and laughs. "Why not? You seem like a decent man, not to mention handsome. Why shouldn't I want to get to know you?" Daryl just leans away from her a bit and looks at her unconvinced. He looks around, thinking about bolting, but he really needs these groceries. He chews on his thumb while he considers his options. If he leaves now he would just have to come back later, and burn that much more gas, and now a days gas ain't cheap. And if he stays, but denies her invitation, he might have to endure the possibility of another awkward confrontation from her throughout the rest of his browsing. But ultimately, he chooses the harder route and decides to suck it up and deny her offer. He looks to her face again, still gnawing on his thumb anxiously. He had a few things in mind he would have liked to say, but when he makes eye contact with her, his mind goes blank.

Satin must have sensed his unease because she state, "To soon? Ah, that's okay. Maybe next time, handsome." She gives him a sweet smile and touches him on his shoulder as she walks by, not noticing him flinch, and then she calmly walks away with her groceries.

He watches her walk away, and as soon as she's out of sight Daryl releases a breath he didn't even know he was holding. He suddenly remembers he's in the middle of a grocery store and looks around quickly in hopes of not finding anyone who could have witnessed his panicked episode. Satisfied that there were no prying eyes or ears he continues on with his shopping spree in relative equanimity.

* * *

On the drive home he couldn't help but get stuck in his thoughts, even though he tried distracting himself by turning the music up load. Currently it was Down in A Hole by Alice in Chains playing but it helped very little. His mind went through the morning worked its way up to when he was on the job and he stewed over that for a while. But the cherry on top of the shit Sunday, that he would call his day, was that weird interaction with that girl, Satin. He couldn't figure her out. She was new to the town, has bound to have heard some of the not so nice things people have to say about him behind his back, and she _still_ wants to hang out with him. Daryl's not real sure how he should feel about that. Flattered or weary.

And on top of it all, there's something about her, something just a little… off. He doesn't know what it is, he couldn't tell you even if you asked. It's because of that reason she makes him feel slightly ill at ease. He doesn't know what to expect from this chick. She's all over the place. He can't figure her out. Hell, the whole damn mess's just screwing with his head. He tries to think about something else, _someone_ else.

He finally pulls into his drive way after doing rounds with his thoughts the whole ride home. He grabs all the bags as he heads inside the house.

Merle's sitting in his recliner when he walks in the front door. "Merle, get out'a my chair." Daryl demands as he struggles with the bags and beer cartons on his way to the kitchen.

Merle ignores him and continues to sip his beer. "Ya got any tampons in them bag?" He says when Daryl starts takin' out the different food from the bag and placing them on the counter. Daryl looks over at him confused, thrown off by the randomness of his enquiry.

"What?"

"Ya know. Tampons! For ya pussy, ya practically one anyways." Merle says with his irritating cackle.

Daryl just stares at him unimpressed. "Ya know Merle, if you'd stop moochin' off me, an' get a fuckin' job and pull ya damn weight aroun' here. I wouldn't have ta do every damn thing mahself." Daryl says, voice rising with each word. "Ya always off. Doin' God knows what, high off ya ass and bringin' home these skanky ass women an' stickin' ya dick in 'em. I don't want those bitches in my house."

"Yeah, well atleast I know how to use mine. Ya's is liable to fall off."

"At least I ain't ever had the clap. And besides, what I do with my dick, is _my _business. So fuck off!" Daryl says irritably as he slams the refrigerator door.

"Woah boy, what crawled up ya ass today?!" Merle frowns at him.

"I'm jus' tired of people's bullshit." He says cutting his eyes at Merle while his stick a cigarette in his mouth and lights it.

"Well, if I didn't know no better, I'd think ya was tryin' ta hurt ole Merle's feelin's." Merle said feigning hurt. "What, you think yer better 'n' me? That it, hmm? You got this job a yours. Makes you feel important, don' it?" Merle says with a cold look in his eyes, all humor gone, getting up from the chair and walking over to him. "Makes a man forget who's really gonna have their back at the end of the day.

"Them boys you work with, that Wesley fella. They don't care about you. They'd leave ya in the dirt wit' two broken legs if they could get away with it." Merle grey eyes piercing into Daryl cobalt blue, "ya just money ta them, you don' mean shit." Merle leans back. "I'm the only one who's ever givin' a damn about ya, Baby Brother. You best remember that."

Daryl takes in an unsteady breath, "Yeah, well if ya cared so damn much you'd get ya lazy ass a _job_." The two continue their staring match, while Daryl notices that his cigarette is missing. It had fallen out of his mouth at some point during Merle's assertion and is lying somewhere on the floor.

"Yeah, I'll get a job alright… for my dick." Merle cackles on the last part.

"Damnit Merle. I'm serious." Daryl says, exasperated.

"Yeah, me too." Merle laughs out as he goes back to Daryl's chair.

_So much for sittin' in my chair_.

Daryl sighs and rubs a hand through his unkempt hair scratching his scalp. He looks for his cigarette and sees it about a foot from his feet, he bends down to pick it up and momentarily wonders if it'd be more harmful to smoke a cigarette from the floor then to actually smoke a cigarette before he sticks it into his mouth anyway, not giving a shit.

"Why don't we go out to the bar and have a few drink. Ya need to loosen up some, Darlena. Maybe find ya some tail that could help ya out with that." Merle says with a wink. Daryl just rolls his eyes.

"Nah, I'd rather not." Daryl says after sitting down in a dining chair smoking his floor cigarette.

"Ah, come on it'll be fun. Maybe you could meet a nice girl that you could run away with and live happily ever after." Merle says batting his eyelashes theatrically.

"Screw you."

"Naw, but really we need ta have a night out. You've been so damn busy with ya fancy work, we ain't spent no time together."

Daryl sighs snubbing his cigarette out. Knowing Merle wouldn't shut up unless he went with him. "Fine." He begrudgingly accepts.

* * *

Satin waits outside patiently reading her book for her favorite blue eyed redneck to step outside of the house. She looks up at the sound of a screen door squeaking, seeing said man steps outside followed by a man with a bigger build, but with similar features. _They must be brothers_. She giddily smiles to herself as she takes a few photos with her cell phone. She watches them get in the blue truck, the same she remembers dropping him off at, and watches them back out of the drive way and drive off towards town. She bites her tongue with excitement, as she sneaks off through the woods to where she was hiding her car and heads towards town.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hanna: I'm sorry for the small wait. I don't have internet at my house so I have to go and use other people's internet. **

**I'm finding that my way of writing isn't good enough for me to be happy with, but with time maybe I'll get better. But whether my writing is good or bad I want to put the story from my head out there, so people can read it. **

**(disclaimer) I don't own The Walking Dead or its characters, any products, or companies mentioned in this fic.**

**And just a reminder that this story is definitely rated M for a reason… so be warned. **

* * *

**Chapter 3:**

Chitlin Switch Tavern, the town's only bar, had a crowd but wasn't entirely too packed when they got there. When they walk in Daryl and Merle walk over to left side of the bar, straight to their typical seats. Merle orders a round of Wild Turkey, while Daryl orders his preferred whiskey, Rebel Yell.

The bar's fairly quiet except for "When the Levee Breaks" Led Zeppelin playing from the stereo system. He remembers when he wired it up. This place hasn't always had a sound system, only relying on music that may get played live on the small stage over on the side of the bar. But Bud Murphy, the owner of the bar, wanted to get one installed. So he knew that if he wanted to get it set up properly he needed to call Daryl. Everyone knows that he's the best electrician around for miles, apart from Jon Wesley.

He savors the burn that his whiskey bestows. _ Maybe this night won't be so bad._ He looks around at everyone in the bar. Everyone in the bar is either old and lonely, depressed, minding their own business, or just having a drink, like them. He doesn't see any of the people that would be probing for some kind of fight. Not yet at least, it was still pretty early.

He likes it better on nights like these. Despite his reputation, he'd rather not get into fights. That's more Merle's thing. Daryl just usually gets dragged into them somehow.

* * *

Daryl is just starting to feel the effects of the alcohol when all the night hawks come bustling in, making the bar much louder and more active.

Daryl's back stiffens when he hears Merle's friends approach, hootin' and hollerin'. He gets up to leave the bar, in favor of a more quite booth. He can never really enjoy himself when those douchebags are around. It's usually when they're around that all hell breaks loose. There has been so many different occasions where he was a victim to their relentless harassing, often times going too far because they were stoned off their asses didn't have a fuckin' clue what they were even doin'.

**About five years ago**

Daryl and the group were at Tommy's, Merle's 'closest' friend's house for a football game, except the game wasn't the center of their discussion; it was Daryl's sex life, or lack of. It was bearable at first, just the average ribbing, "Oh, you need to do this or that." But it quickly escalated to something much more aggressive. Tommy approached Daryl assertively, speaking, "I bet ya don't even like women." He could hear snickers coming from around the room. Tommy's eyes were almost completely black, from some unknown drug flowing around in his system.

"No, I bet you's some type a queer." Of course Daryl wasn't, but he had a feeling telling him so wouldn't have helped his situation any, so he said nothing. Tommy continued towards him, and his advance caused Daryl to take weary steps backwards until his back was flat against the wall and Tommy was in his face. Daryl swallowed nervously, fearful of where this was going. "Is that right?" Tommy whispered breathily, he could feel the dude's revulsive breath on his lips; he turned his face away trying to escape it.

Suddenly Tommy grabbed Daryl's balls with an iron grip, which caused Daryl to gasp from shock and his eyes to widen to an almost impossible degree. Daryl squirmed from a combination of discomfort and the desperate need to get away, but Tommy just squeezed harder. Daryl accidentally let out a small whimper. He immediately felt like a little bitch afterwards.

Daryl's face was flaming hot from shame and embarrassment as Tommy continued his escapade and the remainder of the group continued to snigger, _including_ Merle. "I bet you like it up the ass," Tommy grabbed Daryl's chin with his free hand and forced him to face him while smiling almost flirtatiously, "reeaal hard." Tommy started tracing Daryl's lips with his thumb and the hand that was assaulting his groin went to comb through his hair, and before he could even think to do anything to stop him, he felt Tommy's lips smashed against his own. It takes a good two seconds to realize what he was actually doing and he started feeling Tommy's wet tongue sliding against his lips. Daryl reacted the only way he could think to and punched Tommy in the jaw. Tommy stumbled back, stunned, then looked back up with an enraged face.

The whole room seemed to get real loud, but muffled at the same time. All his senses where super aware and he became overwhelmed with the surrounding light and sound. He couldn't concentrate on anything but what was right in front of him. All he knew was that he had to get away and he had to get past an angry Tommy. Tommy reared back to punch Daryl, screaming, "You sumbitch. I atta..." but stopped short when Daryl smashed a rather expensive looking lamp into his head. Daryl dropped the broken lamp and made a run for the door. He felt hands grabbing at him trying to hold him down, but they let go when Daryl swung his fist out with a defiant scream, hitting faces and crushing bone.

Daryl made a run for his truck and high tailed it to his house. When his got home he crawled into his bed, in complete darkness curled up in his covers, and tried his best not to cry.

**Present**

Of course none of them assholes remembered a single thing from that night, only Daryl. And unsurprisingly, Daryl never went with them anywhere after that either. He never felt comfortable around Tommy again after that, he never went with him alone _anywhere_. Sometimes he'd catch him looking at him a certain way and he wondered if he was secretly gay, and that night the drugs let him slip up. He smirks when he thinks what Merle would do if he found out.

"Ey, Daryl. Where ya goin'?" Tommy asks flamboyantly, with his stupid, perpetual grin in place. Man, he really hated that guy.

"Don't worry boys, he's just goin' to change his tampon. He bought some fresh ones earlier today," Merle says to them, which earns him cackles from the group. Daryl just growls at him, earning bigger grins from them.

"Fuck off, Merle," Daryl says, walking away with a sneer. Any chance of his Zen staying undisturbed is ruined just then.

"Awe, come on Darlena. Don' be like tha'. You know we's just havin' some fun. You know it was funny," Merle yells out into the bar.

He can feel their stares going into his back, but he ignores it and finds a nice empty booth in the corner of the bar, far away from Merle and his buddies' goading. "Yeah, whatever," Daryl mumbles to himself.

Ten minutes later he's still sitting alone, looking down restlessly peeling and unpeeling the label of his bud light bottle when a shadow blocks the light at the end of the table. Daryl looks up from his rumination to see who's standing there.

"Is that seat tak'n?" Jon Wesley asks, gesturing to the empty bench across from Daryl with his head.

Daryl meets his grey eyes with his own briefly before shaking his head and looking back down at the beer bottle in hand. "Rough day today?"

Daryl scoffs. "Yeah, you could say that," he says with a tired chuckle.

Jon looks over at the bar and at Merle carrying on with his buddies loudly. "Didn't want to hang around that for too long, I see… I don't blame ya. I get enough of shit like that with my employees. Young assholes prancin' around like they know more than people who's been doin' the shit they're doin' now since they were shittin' their britches," Jon gripes while sipping his own beer.

Daryl looks up from his bottle and almost smiles. "Amen, brother. I don' think I coulda put it better myself."

"I think when I get home I'm gonna fall asleep in my recliner… and sleep there all night," Jon says with a little humor.

"I've done that a coupla times myself, still not as good as the bed, though," Jon grunts in agreement.

"Although recently, I've seemed ta have lost my chair ta Merle. I've considered several things I could do ta get 'im out, but each one would prolly result with me getting my ass beat," Daryl explains.

Jon looks thoughtful, then he grins devilishly, his brown and red mustache dramatizing the action. "I know what you could do ta make 'im keep out of yer chair."

"What?" Daryl asks with a crooked grin, now curious of what his mastermind plan would be, knowing he could come up with some seriously mean shit.

Jon's about to respond but is interrupted by a group of three men appearing abruptly at the end of their table, each man pinning Daryl down with a hard stare that could peel that paint off of walls, and Daryl just stares equally as hard right back at him.

"We want our money, Dixon," the black haired, tattooed guy in the middle says.

"I don't know what the hell ya talking 'bout," Daryl responds honestly, muscles tensing, starting to get pissed off.

The big fat guy on the left gets closer threateningly and says, "Are ya def. The man asked for our money. Now you're gonna give us this money," he finishes, getting real close.

"I suggest ya get outa mah face, before ya make me do sum'm ya gonna regret," Daryl warns coolly. "Because I don't owe you no DAMN MONEY!" Daryl says, hollering at the end.

Apparently, Tattoos didn't take to kindly to Daryl screaming in Fatty's face because immediately after he grabs Daryl by the hair with one hand and under the arm with the other and yanks him out of the booth so suddenly it could have given him whiplash.

Daryl lands hard with a grunt on the table sitting closest to their booth, knocking it over. The people sitting in the chairs scramble to their feet in shock of having a person fly in-between them.

Everything goes quite in the bar. Then chaos erupts and the bar goes crazy.

Daryl's pretty sure he has broken glass stuck in his back from his harsh landing on the table, but he ignores the sting as he jumps up from the floor because the men are advancing on him. Tattoos punches Daryl in his left eye, but screams when he hits metal instead of bone, and retracts his fist with broken, bloody knuckles.

Daryl wants to laugh, but doesn't have the time because the third guy and Fatty both punch him in the stomach at the same time causing him to double over. Fatty takes advantage of this and knees Daryl in the face.

Daryl gasps from the loud pop inside of his head and searing hot pins and needles he feels in his temples and behind his nose and eyes, but from this perspective he gets a perfectly nice view of a .45 tucked neatly away in Fatty's waistband. _Sumbitch!_ He quickly gets his baring in time to actually see this guy make move for it, but before he can do that Daryl punches him in the temple as hard as he can, using all his pent up anger as fuel. He grunts with satisfaction when the man falls to the ground out cold.

But he can't bask too long in triumph because Tattoos is raring his uninjured fist to punch Daryl in the face. Daryl ducks under his punch and uses both hands to push hard against his chest, making Tattoos fly backwards into another table, knocking it over. While he's down Daryl quickly picks up an abandoned bottle lying on the floor and smashes it into Tattoos head when he stands up. It first looks like it isn't going to knock him out, but after a second of wobbling he falls over, hitting his head on another table, no doubt making his stay in Wonderland that much longer.

Daryl realizes that there should have been a third guy but looks over and sees Jon beating the shit out of him.

Somebody bumps into Daryl's back and he turns quickly to look and realizes that the whole place has broken out into a brawl.

Quickly, he walks over to Jon and drags him away from that guy he was beating and out of the bar. With a brawl like this there'll be no doubt that the cops will be coming and he doesn't want his boss being stuck in the middle of that shit.

When in the parking lot, covered from view by his truck and someone else's, Jon speaks up. "Well… that was fun," he states sarcastically while rubbing the bruise he has on his jaw.

Daryl can't help but laugh out loud; he could feel the blood pouring down his face. "Yeah... real fun." He waves his hands for emphasis. Then he got serious, "Ya wife ain't gonna be mad, is she?"

Jon just waves a hand. "Naw, as long as I keep my dick to myself and come back home, she doesn't really give a damn _what_ I do." Jon pauses for a moment and studies Daryl's face while he's thinking, "Did you know those guys back there?"

Daryl shakes his head. "Never seen 'em before in my life," he mutters while he presses a rag under his nose, that he got from his truck, trying to control the blood leaking from it.

"Yeah, they were askin' fer money."

"Yeah, but for what do ya think?" Daryl asks and Jon ponders on this for a moment before he says, "Drugs." They both look at each other. Understanding passes through their eyes.

"They got the wrong Dixon," Jon states coolly.

"Or maybe not. That motherfucker prolly _told_ them I'd pay," Daryl says, getting angry all over again. "FUCK! MOTHERFUCKIN' GOD_DAMNIT_!" Daryl screams while kicking the tire of his truck. Jon just stands there patiently, not at all frightened by Daryl's display.

Daryl stands hunched over still facing his truck taking in deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

"I need a cigarette," Daryl croaks out, all anger previously felt suddenly gone, leaving him other, equally as taxing, emotions. He pulls out a cigarette from his pack and lights it with shaky hands. Jon notices this and thinks of things he could say, that may make him feel better, but comes up short.

Daryl unceremoniously sits down on the concrete, knees bent up to his chest and his elbows resting on his knees, head hanging low. "He says he cares about me." Daryl pauses for a long time.

"But he never does anything to _prove_ it." He holds his palms up and shrugs his shoulders, staring off into space with a frown. Blood drips down his face, some getting caught in his goatee and some of it landing on his clothes. Jon had sat down on the edge of the sidewalk a while back, and was currently waiting Daryl out.

"What today really proves, though," he pauses to puff on his cigarette, "Is that he don't give a _shit _about me," Daryl says crestfallen.

"Today proves that… because he cares more about getting his precious," his breath hitches and pauses to compose himself," his precious crack, than for me livin' to see another day."

Jon's eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?" Daryl looks over at him.

"One of them had a gun. I saw it. He started to draw for it, and I know he would have used it. Thankfully I knocked 'im out 'fore he had the chance, otherwise I'd prolly be dead right now," he says, a little more composed.

Jon blows out a breath, "Damn."

"I'm tired of his shit. Starting now, he either gets clean or gets out," he says with finality.

Flashing red and blue lights penetrate the night as the police drive by.

"Ya know you don't have to go to work tomorrow if you don't want to. I can handle things," Jon says to Daryl, knowing he's going to feel like shit tomorrow.

"Don' worry, I'll be there… See ya later," Daryl says, opening his truck door. Jon raises his eyebrows at him.

"Yeah… good luck," Jon tells him before Daryl gets in and closes it, starts the engine, and then heads home, not at all feeling guilty for leaving Merle behind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hanna: (NOTICE) I changed the name of my story, it used to be named 'Confinement', but I find the name of my dad's favorite whiskey to be more suiting. And I'm thinking that the story cover is gonna be temporary, until I can draw somethin' up. I hope y'all like this chapter; it was kinda hard to write. Please review and tell me what ya think! **

**I don't own The Walking Dead, or any products mentioned in the story!**

* * *

Chapter 4

Daryl's head is throbbing. His nose stopped bleeding a while back, but that only helped the pain inside his head a little and limited the stains his clothes would have.

He also can't stop himself from thinkin' about Merle's stupid ass. Daryl's so distracted by the annoying pain and the battle with his overpowering spurt of self hatred, a hatred of everything really, that he almost doesn't see the car stopped in the middle of the road.

The truck screeches to a stop as Daryl slams on his breaks at the last possible second, skidding to a stop mere inches from the car.

Daryl sits perfectly still with his eyes wide with shock, while taking a few seconds to compose himself, then feels the anger start to well up inside him. He hits the caution lights and throws the door open, and shuts it with an angry slam.

Daryl stalks around the vacant car to find its driver and give them hell. He hears running behind him so he turns to its source. He's greeted with a, from what he could make out in the dark, very worried girl emerging from the woods.

Daryl he stalks over angrily, "Why in the _hell_… is ya car parked in the middle of the FUCKIN' road?!" he barks at the figure. He grimaces at that feeling of his voice vibrating through his sinus cavity. When he stops two feet from the figure he sees that it's Satin standing there, meeting for the second time that day. He glances back at the car, "with no lights on," he adds.

She doesn't respond. Instead, she just stares at him with a weird look spread across her face.

"Well?" he asks impatiently, still no response.

Daryl scoffs, "what, ya stupid or sum'm?"

"Why should I answer your question when you never answered mine?" she asks defensively crossing her arms.

Daryl scrutinizes her irritably, "Are you fuckin' serious?!" Daryl raises his arms frustrated. "I could have just KILLED myself because your stupid ass left ya car in the middle of the fuckin' road, with no emergency lights on, for anybody to come along and crash themselves into!" Daryl's hands come down to his sides with a slap, after speaking with ferocious hand gestures.

"The least ya could do, is tell me _why_." She just continues to stare at him, making Daryl start to think that she's a little dense.

Daryl shakes his head. "Man, I ain't got time for this shit." He turns around and starts walking back to his truck. He doesn't feel like wasting his time, and he wants to get home, take some ibuprofen, a much needed shower, and go to bed; it's been a long day. Hopefully Merle won't come back tonight. He didn't feel like dealing with his drunk, probably stoned, ass when he came back.

He was three feet from his truck when she spoke up.

"I don't know. It just died while I was driving."

Daryl stops walking and turns toward her. He looks at her looking at him. "What were ya doin' in the woods… in the dark?"

"It doesn't matter." Daryl looks at her harder, thinking about pressing the subject but decides to just leave it alone.

"Uh… was it acting up er anything before it quit?"

She shook her head. "I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary." She bites her full lip. "Do you think you could look at it?"

Daryl doesn't really want to. All he wants is his bed, to rest his aching muscles. But looking at this girl, it also won't sit right with him to just leave this girl on the road. He sighs in defeat. "Fine, but just a look, if ya need parts though, ya shit out a luck 'cause I ain't got nothin' to help ya."

She smiles at him. "Thank you."

She watches as he gets a flash light from his truck. He walks around to the front of her car and gestures for her to pop the hood. He lifts up the hood and sets it on the stand and props himself up with his free hand on the car as he's at work searching for the problem.

After a few minutes of searching he can't see any obvious problems that would cause the car to die on her.

"Keys," Daryl asks, walking towards her and extending his hand.

"Why?" Satin asks and Daryl cocks an eyebrow, still holding his hand out.

"So I can help figure out the problem." She continues looking at him, so he snaps his fingers, "come on," ordering her.

She relinquishes and drops the keys into his ruff palm looking away. "See?" He raises his brows. "Not so hard." He gives her a crooked, mocking smirk.

Daryl sits down in the driver's seat and puts the key in the ignition and turns it.

The car starts up immediately with no stalling or any other problems. Turning the car off Daryl looks up at the girl, miffed. "Thought you said there was a problem," Daryl growls out.

"There was, I swear. I don't know why it wouldn't start back up… Maybe just by you just lookin' at it, it came back to life," she offers lamely.

Daryl just glowers at her, unamused. "Riiight…" He stands up slowly. "Whelp, I think I'm done here." He walks away from her a little faster than he stood.

"Thank you," she calls out.

"Yeah, whatever," he mutters to her before getting in his truck and driving away.

* * *

Walking through the front door of his home, he breathes out a huge sigh of relief, "fuckin' _finally_."

The first thing he does is go to the cabinet in his bathroom and take out some ibuprofen and dry swallow a couple pills. He looks over at the mirror as he screws the cap back on and puts the bottle back in the cabinet. He knows he should clean his cuts, but doesn't want to look at himself.

He walks over to it and is shocked at how horrible he looks right now. _'No wonder that girl kept starin' at me. I'm fuckin' hideous._' Blood is smeared down the side of his head. There's a pink smudgy film under his nose mixed into his goatee, which is remnants of the blood that was wiped away haphazardly. Both of his eyes are black, but his left one is by far the worst. That eye is swollen with a bleeding tear underneath where that tattooed asshole punched him in his eye and hit his metal eye socket. The two opposing forces caused his skin to rip open, producing half of the blood that's on his face. And he doesn't even know what his back looks like. He knows he probably has blood running down his back. He probably put blood all on the backrest of his truck's bench seat. But out of everything, his nose wins the award for ugliest deformities. It's blue, fuckin' _blue_! And it's two times the size it should be. There's no doubt that his nose is broken, but luckily, it doesn't look like it changed positions or that it was bent, so he won't have to set it.

Daryl goes to work washing the blood off of his face, careful to avoid his nose, wincing every now and then when he rubs a particularly tender spot. Looking back up at his reflection, he still grimaces; even though he looks considerably better he still looks like shit.

He wonders if he looked this bad when he was talking to Jon. Probably not because he would have protested more against him going to work tomorrow. He ponders if he should consider Jon's offer. Daryl rubs his face in thought and absent-mindedly bumps his nose. "Ah... Fuck!" he hisses out. 'This is going to be a long healing process.'

After Daryl fixes up his back the best he can and takes a shower, that's when he realizes that he was fucking starving. Daryl hasn't been this neglectful to his body's needs in quite some time.

Rubbing his face tiredly, mindful of his nose this time, he walks to the kitchen in just his t-shirt and boxers, hair still dripping. He gets out a couple cans of raviolis and heats that up for himself.

He's sitting in his recliner enjoying his quick meal while watching the television when the front door slams open with a bang. Daryl unintentionally throws his bowl across the room while almost simultaneously pissing his boxers.

Now standing, breathing hard from shock, he faces the door to see Merle standing there leaning against the door frame giving Daryl the evil eye. He didn't even hear anyone drive up.

"What?" Daryl asks crisply.

Merle approaches Daryl swiftly. "Ya gonna just leave me like that, Baby Brother?" He points at his chest with his thumb. He knows he shouldn't try pushing him too hard because of his current hostile behavior, but he can't stop his voice as it comes out of his mouth.

Daryl scoffs, "I'm surprised ya even noticed. Ya so fucked up most..." Merle grabs Daryl by the collar of his shirt, causing Daryl to wince at the quick movement.

"Don't fuckin' go there!" Daryl roughly pushes Merle's hands away.

"I left ya because you're a pretentious sumbitch that cares for nobody except yaself." Daryl barely gets the last words out before he's slammed into the wall, Merle's forearm pressing heavily against his throat. The two eye each other heatedly. Daryl can tell Merle is on something by the way his eyes are shifting around.

"Don't fuckin' say that shit! Ya know I was the only one there for ya when we was kids, and it's the same now," Merle hisses in his face. "You was just a pathetic piece a shit back then. You only a little bit better now."

Daryl chokes and tries to gulp in air past the arm constricting his throat. "Ge' the fuck off me," he manages to grit out, but Merle doesn't relent and he presses harder. Merle continues flapping his gums, but Daryl doesn't hear because his lungs are burning and his brain screaming at him to breathe. He scrambles trying to move Merle's arm but it doesn't help; he's leaning all his weight into it, and Daryl is dead-tired. His vision starts to go black, so he starts franticly pushing Merle's chest with as much vigor as he can muster up.

Merle stumbles back, but before he goes he succeeds in grabbing Daryl's shirt and pulling him down on top of him to the floor.

Merle lands on the floor with a loud thwack and Daryl lands on top of him with a thud, muffling a yelp as he hits his nose on Merle's shoulder.

Merle recovers momentarily and forcibly pushes Daryl away with an angry grunt. Daryl flies over and hits his head on the coffee table.

Merle gets up and slowly and looks down at Daryl, scoffing. He walks over and settles himself in Daryl's recliner while Daryl's still curled up on the floor clutching his head. "I remember when you's just a little kid shittin' in ya britches. Barely could walk. I was the one who looked after ya sorry ass. Ma never cared. Dad… well… you know. I taught ya everything I know. Yep, it's always just been you 'n' me. And it ain't gotta change."

"That's what you think," Daryl mutters from his downed position.

"Excuse me?" Merle asks, looking down and leaning forward in the chair.

Daryl sits up, squinting his eyes at Merle. "You think things ain't gotta change, but they do," he says with purpose.

Merle just chuckles. "Is that right?" he asks mockingly, enunciating each word carefully.

"You better fuckin' believe it because this thing you got goin' on… I ain't fuckin' puttin' up with it anymore!" Daryl says without losing eye contact. "You're the one who's a fuckin' waste a space! Not me! At least I have a fuckin' job… and don't sit around all day drinking beer, shootin' the shit, bangin' whores, and usin' all my money! But... but you! All you fuckin' care about is your drugs! You don't fuckin' care about me!" he screams, shaking with weakly controlled anger. "If ya cared about me even a fraction of what you say you do," he explicates gratingly, " You wouldn't be willin' ta trade my life for one a ya scores." At this point, Daryl's leaning over the armrest of his chair pointing a shaky finger in Merle's face. "And get out'a mah fuckin' chair!" he hisses.

"_Your_ chair?" Merle scoffs in his face. "Boy I think you are mistaken. This chair is mine." He pats the armrest.

"You didn't fuckin' buy it. 'An I'm tellin' ya now," Daryl warns. "Get. Out. Of. My. _Fuckin'_ chair!" Daryl's eyes are on fire, his face red.

"Oh?" Merle mocks, eyes darkening. "_Make me_."

Those are the words that make Daryl snap. Violently shaking, with red filtered vision, he grabs the back of his chair and thrusts it forward, causing Merle to tumble to the floor with the chair landing on top of him.

Daryl vigorously kicks his chair over to the side, too caught up in his rage to care about damaging his furniture. He crouches forward and grabs Merle roughly by his vest, bringing his face an inch from his own, Merle looking at him with surprise.

"Ya know I coulda died today 'cause a you?" Daryl spits out.

"How's tha'?"

"Ya drug buddies paid me a visit in Chitlin," Daryl adds, knowing it would kick in sooner or later.

Merle stares at him blankly. "I don't know what ya talkin' 'bout," he lied.

"No, you do. Ya knew what you was doin' when ya did it, too! Ya drug buddies showed up tonight. They was gonna kill me if I didn't give 'em their money, the money that you owe them. I'm fuckin' sick of your shit. I want you out of my house," he says standing up. Merle just gapes at him. "I'm fuckin serious Merle. I've tried to get you ta stop, but you don't ever listen. You've been moochin' off me fer too damn long."

"You can't do that," Merle says doubtfully, with a hint of worry.

"Yes I can. Watch me." Daryl marches to Merle's room. Merle follows closely, trying to intervene by grabbing Daryl's arms holding him in place while they're in the hallway.

"You don't fuckin' need to go in there!" Daryl turns around and punches Merle in his adam's apple. Merle lets go, coughing and grabbing his throat. He looks up and sees Daryl a foot from his door. Merle rushes forward and tackles Daryl to the floor and they roll around, cussing each other out, trading punches. Daryl manages to get the upper hand flips Merle underneath him. He grabs Merle by his head and starts banging it on the floor while he was getting pelted with punches. Merle punches Daryl in his nose, which stops his ministration of trying to beat Merle's brain out. Merle flips around and gets Daryl in a choke hold, trapping him. Daryl starts to panic, having flashback of his childhood come back to him. He starts flailing his arms, losing oxygen quickly; he does the only thing he can think of and starts aiming for Merle's nuts, hitting them as hard as he can. Merle lets go of his choke hold, favoring holding his aching balls to holding Daryl's throat.

Daryl gets up quickly and enters Merle's room and grabs piles of the first thing he sees, random clothes, which are lying all over the room in piles. He briskly walks past a disquieted Merle, throws the front door open, and dumps the clothes in the front yard. He rushes back in and into Merle's room and grabs more of his clothes and when he gets to the door of the bedroom he hesitates. "Fuck it." He turns around and opens the bedroom window and starts shoving more of Merle's shit out the window.

"Hey! Hey! What are ya doin'? No. You can' do that!"

"I'm getting'rid of ya stuff, Merle. Ya'd want to take this shit with ya, right?" Daryl says raspily. Merle just disappears and Daryl continues to carelessly throw Merle's worthless junk out of the window.

When Merle comes back he has the clothes Daryl rushes towards Merle and snatches the clothes from his grip, "I tol' you! Ya not fuckin' stayin' 'ere!"

Merle and Daryl start tousling over the clothes, fumbling, and Daryl ends up falling to the floor landing beside the bed. Daryl turns swiftly, ready to spring forward and tackle Merle, but freezes when he sees the items stashed under the bed.

He drags the bag of vials and smaller bags filled with white powder out from underneath the bed with a yank, clothes completely forgotten. "What the fuck is this!?" Daryl demands, standing quickly.

"Don' fuckin' touch that!" Merle warns darkly.

Daryl crosses his arms with disdain, "what ya gonna do... Kill me?" asking derisively.

Merle springs forward for the drugs, but Daryl throws it out of Merles reach and furiously pushes Merle away from him and gets in his face, Merle's eyes occasionally darting to the bag out of reach.

"I told you ta fuckin' keep ya drugs out a mah house!" He growls. "What ya got some stashed in my room too?" Merle's face goes blank. Daryl growls a curse under his breath. "Ya seem ta always forget something... This is MY HOUSE! Not yours! I let you live here! It's not a right, it's a fuckin' priviledge!-" Merle pushes Daryl backwards rushing for the bag of drug, but he's stopped by rough hands grabbing onto his throat propelling him backwards.

"Out! Get out of mah house!" Daryl yells, violently pushing Merle out of the bedroom and to the front door.

"No! Daryl! Ya can' do this! You don't have the fuckin' balls... I'm just gonna come back!" Merle exclaims.

They reach the front door and Daryl rips it open and pushes Merle out. "I'm fuckin' tired a ya shit 'an I'm fuckin' tired a you!" Daryl screams. "Don't even _try_ comin' back till ya get ya shit together." He screams before slamming the door.

* * *

Merle stares at the door in dismay. He can't believe the little shit had the balls to kick him out like that.

Suddenly the door swings open again and a hard plastic objects hits him in the chest then clatters to the ground. Looking down at the object he sees that it's a cellphone.

"There's ya fuckin' cell phone. Fuckin' use it!" Daryl yells while hanging out the door before slamming it closed the finale time.

Merle looks back down at the cellphone at his feet and picks it up bitterly before muttering to himself. "Fuck this. Fuck 'im, I don't need him."

"You're gonna regret this Daryl! Ya fuckin' hear me!"

* * *

Daryl leans against the door after he shuts it the finale time with a scowl marring his face, listening to Merle screaming on the other side. He hadn't intended on kicking Merle out immediately after he came back. He was going to give him an ultimatum, but as soon as he saw Merle's face when he came how all of his earlier emotions came rushing back to him full swing.

He can't say he regrets what he did because he doesn't, but he can't get the look on Merle's face out of his head. But it's too late to go back now, asshole had it coming.

Daryl looks around at the jostled furniture and then woefully over at his ruined supper on the floor by the TV. Sighing, he walks over putting his chair back in place. He mops up his raviolis and throws it away. He knows he probably looks ten times as worse than before. He can feel the blood running down his face. His nose is definitely fucked up this time around. He goes to the bathroom and looks at it. The middle of the bridge of his nose is bowed towards the right side of his face. He's definitely not going to leave it that way; it'd sure enough make him look like a freak. He exhales and places his finger tips on the afflicted area and presses in and pushes the bridge over to the left side of his face, he muffles the guttural moan escaping his throat by biting hard on his bottom lip.

When he gets his nose to look as straight as he can, at least as much as he can tell through the swelling, he grabs the hand towel hanging beside the sink and holds it to his nose in an attempt to control the blood flowing out. Unfortunately this isn't the only time he's had to realign his broken nose. Between all the injuries he's received from his job, fights in the bar, and times when he got the shit beat out of him by his father, he's had a lot of practice doing it himself.

He walks to kitchen in search for a sandwich bag to fill with ice. He sits down in his chair in the dim room waiting for the bleeding to stop. He wonders if Merle's still out there, just standing there staring at the front door like it would explain to him why his brother kicked him out regardless of him already knowing, but the rumble of a motorcycle being kick started answers his question. Daryl sighs to himself leaning back and placing the bag of ice on his nose. He hates that he had to do kick him out. He hates the way Merle is. He hates that he hates Merle right now. To sum it all up, he pretty much hates everything at the moment.

He gets up to go to bed, being to tire to do anything else. He turns everything off and he settles into bed. He's about to drift off when something occurs to him.

_Fuck! I'm gonna have ta get new locks for the door._


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: I went back and changed the last section to chapter 4. It's nothing major, but go back and read it, if you care enough.**

**Also, I got my new and finale story cover drawn up and posted. Yay for self motivation.**

**This chapter was originally going to be close to 5,000 words, but I was worried that all of it together would be too much to take in, so I split it in half. So I'll be having the next chapter up shortly.**

**Read and Review. Hope ya like it. ^_^**

Chapter 5:

Daryl's awakens early that morning, but he doesn't know what caused it. He rolls over moaning and lies there with his eyes closed while all his senses slowly start coming back to him. All his aches and pains begin to seep back into his body as it slowly wakes up.

He's just about to slip back into slumber when he hears a creaking floorboard from the hallway. Daryl's eyes immediately snap open. As far as he knows, he's supposed to be the only one in his house; unless Merle decided he wants to get his ass beat on some more. Daryl props himself up on his elbows to get a better view out of his bedroom door.

"Merle!" He pauses to listen, nothing but the dull hum of electricity penetrating the night air answers him. "Merle! I told you to get out of my house." Silence follows again and then he hears what almost sounds like a faint sigh, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. _What the fuck!? I got fuckin' ghosts now!_ He mentally scoffs at himself.

Daryl slowly and quietly pushes his covers back and steps onto the cold, wooden floor with his bare feet. He stealthily walks his way to his bedroom door. Much more timidly he calls out, "Merle... is that you?"

Peeking through the doorway into the hallway, he sees nothing, no movement, just complete darkness. Something isn't right with this. Merle with his boisterous nature would have made himself known by now.

Daryl swallows and quietly makes his way back to his bed and retrieves Ida, his Springfield XD .45 that he keeps under his pillow. He named her after this one black girl he knew in high school. Anyone that was brave enough to mess with her or any of her family and friends got their asses beat. Daryl respected that.

Daryl soundlessly walks back to the doorway, peeking into the hallway once again and listens. This time, instead of calling out, he whistles a note. He pauses for any answering sounds, but the only sound to be heard is the eerie call of a screech owl off in the woods behind his house.

He almost can't even see. The world around him is almost complete darkness, except for maybe the faint glow from an electric clock. The only reason he hasn't stumped his toe on any objects or ran into the doorway is because he knows exactly where everything is; every creaky board, every corner.

He's just about to take a step towards the living room when he hears what sounds like a raspy breath, albeit faint, but definitely there. Daryl freezes, getting uneasy. Someone is here.

He walks slowly, gun at the ready, to the living room where he thought he heard the sounds come from. He gets to the living room and crouches in a spot where he has a view of both the kitchen and living room. Again he's greeted with the sight of empty darkness. He walks over to look behind the couch, while also checking around him in an attempt to keep an ambush from happening.

He's just stalking past the TV when he hears the sound of a boot tapping the floor right behind him. Daryl whirls around quickly and is greeted by a tall black figure wearing a cloak standing there defiantly, looking at him. Daryl points his gun at the figure, shaking it with each word for emphasis, "GET THE FUCK OUT MY HOUSE! NOW!"

The figure quickly back peddles and seemingly produces a knife out of nowhere and throws it at Daryl. The intruder bolts towards the hallway, and Daryl chases after the figure and risks a shot. The shot is loud in contrast to the deafening silence previously and it leaves his ears ringing unpleasantly. The figure grunts and grabs its right arm, rushing into Merle's room frantically with Daryl following closely behind. He gets into Merle's room just in time to see the figure scramble out of the window and take off, disappearing into the woods.

Daryl leans out of the window. "That's right! You better run!" he hollers into the dark.

He pulls his head back in and reaches up to close the window, but stops at the searing pain suddenly coming from above his left collarbone. He looks down and is startled by the sight of a knife sticking out of him. _Well fuck me_.

He grabs the hilt and swiftly pulls out the knife with a grunt and studies it in the darkness; his warm blood pools into the dip of his collarbone and cascading down his stomach from the newly unobstructed wound. It's not an overly big knife, but it's big _enough_ apparently.

After pulling the window closed he inspects his wound, bracing himself on the seal trying to overcome the lightheadedness he's beginning to feel. He's lost various amounts of blood under different circumstances during the past day and now it's starting to catch up to him.

He peels his soggy t-shirt away from his chest, grimacing at the sound of it ripping off of his skin, and pulls it off over his head with the best of his ability. He looks down at the wound, wiping the blood away with his shirt to get a clear view of injury. He determines that he'll need to stitch it. It's too deep to just put a bandage over and leave it.

Pressing the bundled up shirt to his injury, he staggers to the bathroom.

When he sits himself down on the toilet seat he starts stitching his cut with his mind restlessly thinking. Who the fuck would sneak into his house? If he didn't know any better it seemed like this person might've been trying to kill him… or worse. Would Merle send someone to… kill him? He doesn't think so, but then his mind goes back to the drugs still in the house. Maybe Merle sent someone to break in his house to steal the drugs back. But who the fuck would Merle know that could be _that _quite. This person snuck up right behind him, and Daryl _almost_ didn't catch them. Daryl goes through the list of people that he knows Merle knows, none of which fit the description of the intruder. _Well, whoever it was knew how to fuckin' throw a knife._ Daryl scoffs and feels his stomach turning like he's about to throw up, but he forces it down. He has shit to do.

He finishes his stitch job and wipes all the blood away from his person, ignoring the unsystematic scars scattered across his torso as he works.

After he feels that he's gotten all of the stickiness from his blood off of his skin he goes into Merle's room. He looks for the bag of drugs that he knows should still be there and sees it lying exactly where he left it, flattened against the floor from the force of Daryl's angry throw. Well, he can debunk his drug theory.

Daryl takes the bag and carries it to the bathroom, pouring all the cocaine down the toilet and flushing. He puts the bags and other trash on the sink, intending to burn it later. He goes back to his room thinking maybe he could _try _to lay down and rest, but he remembers that Merle had hid a stash somewhere in his room. He has an idea of where he might have hid it. As cliché as it sounds there's a loose floorboard near the corner of his room. When you peel it up it leaves a space big enough to hide something in it. And Daryl bets anything that's where he hid it.

He lifts up the board and isn't disappointed. He snatches the bag and takes it with him to the bathroom. He does the same thing as he did with the first. He puts all of the trash in a Kroger's bag to burn later and hangs it on the bathroom doorknob.

…

Daryl's day at work was slow and agonizing; his nose hurt like a bitch, especially when he would lean forward to do a job like install wiring close to the floor that would be connected to an outlet, it felt like his head was going to explode. And the fatigue from blood loss he experienced didn't help matters much. But despite the discomfort, no one bothered him. Just one look at his face told them enough that they needed to know. Whatever Daryl looked like, the other guy must look worse.

Daryl is just done updating his time book in his work trailer when his cell phone vibrates. He looks at his caller ID and sees that it's Jon.

"Hello?" Daryl asks.

"Hey, you got any plans this evenin'?" Jon asks.

Daryl thinks about it. He knows that he needs to go to the hardware store to get new locks for his front and back doors… and maybe some locks for his windows too. Right now Merle could go in his house at anytime he pleases because he still has a copy of the house key. But maybe he could fit in whatever Jon's thinking about asking. "Nothing too much. Gotta swing by the hardware store, get some new locks."

"Okay well, when yer done with that, think ya can come over to my house and then head out to check the game cameras?" Jon asks.

Daryl doesn't really have to think to hard about his decision. "Yeah, sure. I'll prolly be there in an hour or so."

They say their byes and hang up.

…

Daryl walks down the aisles, eyeing the different doorknobs begging him to be the chosen ones. There are several different types, but he settles on getting a couple for the front and back door that look exactly like the ones he already has.

He walks over to the next aisle and snatches up the first locks he sees that will work on his windows. He hopes that this will be enough to discourage anybody from trying to get into his house, although he has the nagging feeling that it won't.

Suddenly he has the overwhelming sensation that someone is watching him. That's not too unusual, considering at least a third of the population here wouldn't think that thievery was below him, but this stare doesn't feel like the typical stares granted by the common town folk. This one feels much more… predatory.

Daryl looks around him, not at all liking the paranoia beginning to set in, making his chest ache as the muscles tighten. There's no one around him that he can see, same as when he walked into the store. He doesn't hear the sounds of people that would be around in the store somewhere. The place seemed damn near deserted up until this point.

Daryl swallows down his anxiety and casually walks to the check out, covering his unease with a gait feigning confidence, a scowl set firmly in place.

He lays his merchandise on the counter and the cashier looks up from her book. She does a double take when she sees his black and blue face.

"What? Ya got a starin' problem!?" Daryl growls at her, scowling. The girl quickly looks away from his face blushing.

"Is that all for you?" she asks timidly.

"Yep," Daryl answers bluntly and sees movement from the corner of his eye. He cuts his eyes to the right and sees a man with long dark hair and a beard wearing a toboggan walking out from the back of the store. Was that who was staring at him so maliciously? Daryl suspiciously glares at him, but the man acts as though he doesn't even notice his existence.

"…Sir?" Daryl is snapped back into the moment by the cashier.

"Wha'?" Daryl asks shaking his head.

"That'll be eighty-six ninety-five," the girl repeats, staring at him with wide, curious, slightly weary eyes.

"Right..." Daryl digs in his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. He pulls his debit card from its slot and hands it to the girl. She slides it through the device and hands it back.

Daryl snatches up the bag and looks over to where he last saw where man was browsing and sees that he's not there anymore. He turns towards the door, suddenly overcome with the desire to leave the store as quickly as possible. He faintly registers the cashier telling him to have a good day as he briskly walks out the store.

He feels slightly better on the drive home, like he's finally alone. _What the hell is going on around here?_

He pulls into his driveway and parks his work truck beside his shed. He gets out and walks to the front door. He enters cautiously, no longer trusting that his home will be empty when he returns to it. He walks around the house to make sure he didn't have any surprise visitors, and when he's satisfied he gets dressed to go to Jon's.

He puts on his usual attire; a black sleeveless button up shirt with tan cargo pants and boots. He places his combat knife in its sheath on his belt then grabs Ida and slides the holster for her onto his waistband and puts her home.

His inability to shake the feeling from this morning and the moment in the hardware store from his mind makes him grab Lil' Cutie, his Taurus PT 738, and puts that one in his pocket, just for good measure. He puts all his extra clips in his empty pants pocket.

After placing locks on all the windows and locking the doors, he gets in his pickup and drives over to Jon's house, hoping like hell Merle doesn't decide to break in his house and trash it.

He arrives at Jon's house shortly. He hears Esther's, Jon's Australian Shepherd, burly bark at his presence when he knocks on the door. C-Dog and Whorehound, Jon's less desirable hound dog mutts, annoyingly poke at his thigh and butt with their noses, and he pats them on the head while he waits.

Jon opens the door and welcomes him in. His friendly smirk quickly fades when he sees Daryl's face as he steps in the house and sits down on the couch.

"What the hell happened? I know you didn't look this bad yesterday."

"Merle," Daryl answers vaguely. Jon stops his gathering of materials to give him a look, imploring him to elaborate. "I kicked him out last night," he reveals. Jon looks at him and slightly nods his head.

"Didn't take it too lightly, I see," he observes, continuing to get himself ready. "Had it comin' though."

Daryl looks down at the coffee table in front of him that's littered with gun cleaning and making paraphernalia. "…yeah."

"Ya ready?" Jon asks, standing up to his full height and slinging his semi automatic rifle over his shoulder.

"Yeah." They both stand up and head for the front

"I'm makin' like a turd an' easin' out!" Jon screams to Diane, his wife, who's in their bedroom. Daryl almost feels like chuckling.

"Ya got yer phone!?" she shouts back.

"Yeah!" Jon stops walking and feels in his phone case. He turns around and sees that he left his phone on the armrest of his recliner, still charging. He slides it in the case and they continue towards the door.

"Don't forget about supper, you two!" they hear her yell.

"Alright," Jon says as he closes the door behind him, following Daryl out.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Okay not updated so shortly, but I had to go through it a few times. Hope you like it. I like to think Buckismith for helping me with some ideas. (I don't own the Walking Dead)**

**Review and tell me what ya think. :]**

Chapter 6

They ride quietly in Jon's Chevy Luv as he drives through the woods on the beaten path to the game camera that's closest to Jon's house first, the rumble of the motor the only sound to fill the silence. Daryl's having problems relaxing his nerves. Something he's not use to, he's usually able to put a rein on how he feels and his emotions so that he at least _appears_ Zen. Not today, he couldn't sit still save his life. He's staring off into space while rubbing his face uneasily while he nervously bounces his leg; every now and then he'd shift his position, no longer finding his current position comfortable. But Daryl's not the only one who's bothered by his inability to relax.

"What the hell's wrong with you? Yer all fidgety…" Jon glances over at Daryl.

"Nothin's wrong." Daryl lies unpersuasively.

"Bullshit." Jon glances over at Daryl skeptically. "I know somthin's botherin' ya. You can't sit still for shit," he adds with a hint of annoyance. "And yer hand hasn't left your face since you've been in here."

Daryl huffs and drops his hand into his lap with a slap glaring out of the window. He doesn't really feel up to talking about it, but at the same time it's all he seems to be able to think about. Every time he turns a corner he almost has the instinct to peek first. He starts gnawing on his thumb.

"I don' know, man." Daryl speaks slowly past his thumb, feeling very bedeviled.

Jon remains quite waiting for Daryl to continue, although wishing he'd take his thumb out of his mouth when he speaks.

Daryl hesitates for a long time before ultimately telling him what's been bothering him. "I woke to someone fuckin' sneakin' around my house this mornin'… at 4:00."

"Serious?" Jon looks alarmed, not at all expecting that to fall from Daryl's mouth.

"That's not even all of it. When I finally saw the fucker they threw a fuckin' knife at me. Got me right here," He lightly touches the wound that's bandaged underneath his shirt, "Got my own shot in at least. The arm I think."

"Huh, ya think the cops would do anything?"

"Hell no. What ya think they can do with the description; a person wearing all black, skinny, a little shorter than me. S'not much ta base an investigation on. The only thing that might be any use to 'em is the knife the guy used. But I doubt our police system is that advanced ta make any a the connections."

"It wouldn't surprise me none." Jon shakes his head.

They ride in silence and Jon can tell that there's something he hasn't said because he holds that hesistant posture someone has when they're about to say something, but don't know how to word it, but he doesn't have to ask because Daryl finally speaks up.

"When I was in the hardware store, I felt someone starin' at me. Not one of them suspicious stares I usually get, but sum'm more… malicious. I don't know, it didn' feel right…"

"You think someone's stalking you?" Jon asks quirking an eyebrow.

"I don't know, man…" Daryl says shaking his head. "Why would someone want to?"

Jon shrugs and stops the truck just off the dirt road by the trail that would lead to the game camera. They get out and tread through the greenery towards the camera.

The walk through the woods helped sooth Daryl's nerves, the smell of the forest and the calls of the birds and chatter of squirrels brought back feelings of slightly happier times, and he lost himself in that. They arrived at the camera shortly and Daryl walk up to it and takes its card out while Jon puts in an empty one to replace it.

"What ya say we go check the other one?" Jon asks. Daryl scratches his chin with his thumb.

"Sure, sounds fine ta me." Daryl answers, feeling a little lighter.

They walk back to the truck and drive deeper into the woods that would be behind Daryl's house if they set out walking into the woods from there and kept going straight for about two miles.

* * *

The trek to this camera from the beaten path is much farther than the one closer to Jon's house.

On the way there they make casual conversation while Daryl looks at the ground for tracks out of sheer habit. He didn't see anything interesting other then maybe the random deer or raccoon prints. After a while he notices a change in what he was seeing. It was a bunch of sloppy tracks backs that crossed paths with the trail. He raises a brow at them

"Someone's been walking all through these woods, Jon." Daryl observes pointing at the evidence.

Jon looks at the ground and scoffs, "yeah well, they better hope I don't catch 'em.

They continue on and the marks crossing the trail disappear, so he focuses on the sounds of nature, forcing it to calm his recurringly bothered nerves and put any troubled thoughts away. He was succeeding until he comes upon drag marks crossing his path. He stops abruptly.

Jon looks over frowning and stops as well. "What is it?" He asks sounding impatient. Daryl gestures to the marks on the ground with his head and Jon looks.

"Drag marks?" Jon asks looking back up to meet his face sounding more curious than annoyed now.

"It's not from a deer, too small. But your prob'ly knew that..." Daryl looks down and points. "You can see where the heels from a pair of boots were drug through the dirt…" Daryl trails off; his pointing hand slowly coming back down to his side as he stands up straight.

They both eye each other for a second before both simultaneously start following the drag marks, careful to not leave to obvious of tracks, just incase.

They follow the trail, with Daryl leading the way, finding random trash thrown down all throughout the journey. It's when he starts smelling the sickly sweet smell of death that Daryl starts to really wonder who the fuck made these tracks.

As they walk farther, the smell gets stronger. And not long after they can see a body lying on the forest floor in the distance. The both approach it slowly. What Daryl sees is enough to make his skin crawl.

It's the body of a coyote. But that's not the problem, coyotes are fuckin' everywhere, losing a few is no skin off his back. It's how it died that's so bothersome. It looked like it's head had been caught in a snare and then its head was chopped off, from what he could tell was probably a machete. But it didn't stop there. After whoever did this chopped its head off they proceeded in chopping its head in half, then in thirds, and fourths. Basically reducing its head to bloody mashed potatoes and fur. All of its feet were sawed off along with its tail. But the most disturbing part of it all was the message carved into the side of the carcass. 'Go Back!'

Out of the corner of his eye Daryl sees an upward movement. He looks over and sees Jon lift up his phone and take a picture. Daryl looks at Jon incredulously. "What?" Jon whispers, overcome with the feeling to be quiet, and shrugs, "it's evidence."

"Tha's really fucked up." Daryl quietly states looking at the mutilated body.

Jon looks at the carcass. "It looks like someone _really_ doesn't want us comin' this way." He looks at Daryl again, "Daryl, you got some really deranged people runnin' around behind yer house. Maybe-"

"Stop… jus' stop." Daryl says glaring at him holding up a hand, while Jon suppresses a smirk. The seriousness of the situation kicks in again and the feeling to smirk quickly fades.

Daryl looks back at the carcass for a moment then back at Jon. "Ya want ta keep goin'?" Jon meets his eyes with determination.

"Hell yeah." Jon answers.

The feeling of dread begins to settle deep in Daryl's bones as they continue onwards. The farther they get a faint sound begins to tickle their ears that seened very out of place. "What the fuck is tha'?" Daryl whispers.

Jon listens for a moment. "Sounds kinda like uh… motor… a generator." He corrects himself.

"The fuck's goin' on 'round here?" Daryl mutters to himself.

"What's that?" Jon asks.

"Nothin'" Daryl whispers back.

As they keep walking the generator gets louder. Eventually they come to a clearing and are faced against a shabby cabin, that looks to hold several rooms, that Daryl is most certain was not there a couple of years ago. "Holy Shhhit." Daryl hisses out almost inaudibly.

"You can say that again. It's like one a those places in the horror movies I fall asleep to." Jon comments offhandedly. Daryl looks at him oddly. "Ya think anyone's at home?" Jon asks, ignoring the look that Daryl's shooting him.

"I don't know, only one way to find out..." Daryl silently stalks up behind the cabin, Jon following closely behind.

Daryl presses his ear against the wall, trying to distinguish any sounds coming from inside that wasn't the hum coming from the generator. He couldn't hear anything, so he slowly peaks into the hole in the wall beside him, just a little higher than his nose, that was probably suppose to be holding a window.

The room was dim and was actually a lot bigger on than it looked from the outside. The room looked to be like some kind of bedroom that looked to be completely bare, except for the dirty mattress lying on the floor in place of an actual bed.

He walks alongside the wall until he reaches a door. He walks up the steps leading up to it and looks back at Jon arching a brow in question and Jon nods his head.

Daryl slowly and quietly as possible opens the door. Daryl steps in and almost back peddles when he's swamped with the humid, musty air tinged with the slight smell of death, as though bodies were previously in the building. He lightly coughs and covers his nose trying to resist the urge to sneeze from the overwhelming flow of dust and mold filling his nose, knowing that if he did it would hurt like hell.

He walks over to stand in the middle of what looks like some sort of den and Jon follows him looking around the room.

"How ya wanna do this?" Daryl asks putting his hands on his hips.

Jon mulls it over while looking around, "you can take that side a the cabin and I can take this side."

Daryl considers this for a moment and nods. "Yeah, that might work."

They walk towards their respective sides of the cabin and begin their search.

Daryl ends up walking down a small hallway that has three doors. One of which leads to the room that he peaked into earlier, he walks inside.

The room looks the same from the inside as it did from the window, the only detail that he missed was a chain attached to the wall at the head of the mattress; he eyes it wearily seeing a cuff attached to the end, one big enough to fit around someone's neck. He unconsciously starts rubbing his neck as he visualizes what it might've been used for, none of which were immaculate or probably even legal.

His eyes pan down to study the mattress. From the inside he could see the color of the mattress much clearer. He could tell it was suppose to be white, but it was yellow with a rusty brown red staining the middle. He shudders as more thoughts come swarming through his mind. _These must be some real sadistic motherfuckers._

Daryl snaps his eyes away from the mattress and stands up straight, quickly retreating from the room.

He checks out the second door and finds that this one leads to a room that's more or less used as a makeshift storage unit. It was filled ceiling high with boxes, with God knows what inside. Daryl furrows his brow at the wall behind the boxes. The walls are lined with tools, tools of all kinds. Some of which, have no business even being in the middle of the woods. He closes the door and heads for the last one at the end of the hall beginning to regret his curiosity for out winning the battle with his nerves.

He cautiously opens the door peeking in first, scared of what he might see in there, before stepping inside. This particular room had an eerie feel to it, not that the whole place didn't, but this room in particular had a creepy vibe, and he couldn't exactly place why.

The room resembled what could have been a kitchen if it were to have a stove. It had a refrigerator on one side of the room with connecting cabinets, which were covered in dust and grease. On the other side is a dining table with chairs placed at each side. The table was cluttered with so much junk he couldn't really tell you what was on it without digging through it. The room had a musty smell just like the rest of the place but this room had a funkier scent to it.

He looks back at the refrigerator, his curiosity again betraying him. He pulls the door open ever so slowly and is quickly engulf by fowl vapors formed by very depths of hell itself. His stomach goes into knots and he fists his mouth firmly while he tries desperately to control his gagging. The smells was something like a combination of spoiled milk, rotting eggs, and decomposing flesh.

When he moderately composes himself looks into the refrigerator through the light film of tears in his eyes with his wavering vision.

When his vision clears enough for him to actually make a straight picture he quickly discovers the source of the smell. Daryl's hit with an intense bout of nausea at the sight of several severed, decomposed human fingers lined out on the top shelf, all of which are missing their nails. He slams the door abruptly, as though the action would erase the image from his head, and stumbles back, not being able to get away from it quick enough.

He feels the floor dip dangerously low underneath him, but before he has any time to react he's free falling into darkness and lands with a crunch.

* * *

Jon wasn't finding anything of interest on his side of the cabin, just dirty clothes or random box lining the hallway and an empty room that smelled like human funk. The boxes weren't filled with anything sinister, just your mundane household supplies. He wonders if Daryl is having better luck on his side.

Jon keeps walking until he gets to the room at the end. More junk was sitting around the place, more specifically boxes, but one thing he noticed were different stack of pictures sitting on top of some of the boxes. He flips through the photos and discovers that each stack contains images of one subject, all of which are completely unaware of being photographed.

Jon takes back his earlier thought about not finding anything of interest, now preferring to have found nothing at _all_ than find stalker pictures of people inside a creepy ass cabin that has an over since of impending demise and the lingering smell of death to go along with it.

He continues to look at the photos noticing that there were notes written on a view in each of the stacks, the twinge of alarm in the pit of his stomach building with each note. He walks around going over to dreadfully see more of the room's contents and freezes when he thinks he sees the figure of someone familiar to him in an image.

"What in the _hell_?" Jon whispers as he approaches a lazily stacked pile of photographs on a desk with a desk lamp bent over pointing down at it, pen close by.

He leans over the photos picking up the top in the pile. "What. In. The. _Hhhell_!?" Jon repeats to himself unsteadily. He feels the cold prickle of complete terror overcome ever nerve in his body when he recognizes the photo's subject.

Jon looks down at the photograph of Daryl walking in the woods with his crossbow. Jon flips through the other photos, and is even more disturbed seeing that they all are of him doing one thing or another, all of which he's unaware were being taken. The last one though, was enough to make him want to quit and go home.

It was the black and white image of a battered Daryl sleeping in his bed taken by a night vision camera, but that wasn't all the showed. You could see the person taking the photo. Well 'see' is a bit of a stretch; the person's head was cocked to the side, wearing night vision goggles, ones that if he wasn't so disturbed he would have been impressed that they even owned them, a black half face mask along with a black cloak, hood over their face. They had the camera pointed towards themselves with Daryl purposefully to the left of them in the background. The person was holding up a coil of rope with a syringe grasped between their index and middle finger, the plunger resting on the pad of their thumb. Scrawled on the bottom of the photo was, "Soon."

_Looks like we just missed 'em._

His concentration on the disturbing image was interrupted by a strangled yelp followed by a loud crashing sound.

Jon takes off running to the other side of the cabin where he knows Daryl should be. He quickens his pace when he hears Daryl's terror filled scream.

Jon nears the back room and sees a gaping hole in the middle of the floor, the stench of death strong in his nostrils. He can faintly hear Daryl whispering a mantra to himself. Something along the lines of, "holy shit. Holy shit. Holy fuckin' shit."

He crouches beside the opening of the hole, peering down. He shines the flashlight that he got from his pocket down at Daryl's curled up form on the ground. He was staring off into the darkness walled eyed and face lacking of color, extending a lighter with a trembling hand.

"Hey, you alright?" Jon asks, but Daryl either doesn't hear him or he's ignoring him.

"Daryl!"

Daryl's head snaps up with a flinch, and it seems as though it takes him a moment before Daryl recognizes that he isn't someone else. "Help me the fuck out a here." Daryl demands, more than requests, anxiously.

"What'd you scream for?"

Daryl glances back at Jon and looks back into the darkness and points his finger while scooting backwards until his back bumped the wall. Jon shines his light over to the depths of the darkness and nearly drops it into the hole. This was a damn slaughter house. "I think we need to call the cops." Jon muses, with anti-humor.

"Fuck the cops! Call the fuckin' FBI!" Daryl demands frantically.

* * *

Jon helped Daryl out of the hole, after concluding that there was no other way out that they could see. Now they were hurrying back to their truck to wait for the cops to arrive and show them the way to the cabin.

Now they're walking in uneasy silence. Jon's deeply disturbed by what he saw back there, and judging by the stiff and stoic disposition of his friend he feels the same way, probably even more so.

It was after they passed the mutilated coyote that he remembered that he still had that photo. Digging in his pocket earlier to retrieve his flashlight let him know that he must have stuffed it in there out of pure instinct because he certainly doesn't remember doing it.

He casts a side glance at Daryl. He was putting up a very convincing façade with his stiff, slightly uneven gait, favoring his left side, and frown set firmly in place, but he can still tell that he was deeply bothered the incident. "Hey." Daryl looks over with a scowl on his face. "I found something… _somethings_… in the cabin that you might need to see.

Daryl stops walking and eyes him guardedly. Jon feels around in his pocket for the photo and pulls it out. He looks at it for a hesitant second before holding it out for Daryl to take.

Daryl stares at the photo for a long time before dubitably taking the photo from his hand to look at it.

Jon watches Daryl's reaction, not knowing what to expect from him. Daryl looks at the photo with a shaky hand and his face drains of its color leaving it so dangerously pale that he fears he might pass out from the sudden drop in blood pressure.

Daryl's breathing picks up and he looks around them like he expected to see someone following them. He can't really fault him. He'd be jumpy himself if he found out messed up people, such as these, were stalking him.

Daryl looks back down at the photo suddenly so calm that it concerns him. "That mus' be what woke me up this mornin'." He remarks, quickly pushing it back into Jon's hands. They continue walking and Jon begins to smells the scent of smoke from the cigarette and knows that Daryl had just lit one.

They reach the main path when Jon breaks the silence, "Hey, you gonna be alright?"

Daryl stares at him blankly for a few seconds then stares back in front of them as they trek through the dead leaves and past baby trees in the trail. He doesn't say anything for so long he decides that he's not going to, but his voice breaks the silence.

"I dunno…. Would you be?"


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: I feel resigned to the fact that I will have grammatical errors in my story. English was never my best subject in school. So those will be in the story, most likely every chapter, but I will **_**try**_** and get better. If I make mistakes that you want to inform me about, you can PM me about it.**

**I don't own The Walking Dead.**

**I hope you like this chapter because I'm not too fond of it, it's pretty mundane stuff… necessary, but mundane. But review and tell me what ya think.**

Chapter 7

The cops came after about 20 minutes of anxious waiting. They're none too pleased to see what Daryl and Jon had discovered in the cabin. Hell, neither were they.

Jon shows Sheriff Grimes the stack of photos that Daryl was the subject of, and even he is perplexed.

They have to wait for the medical examiners to arrive before they can really get to much done. Rick ends up calling up two homicide detectives to help him investigate. Rick had originally been in training for the detective agency, so he's qualified to lead the investigation.

After the medical examiners take photos of everything they'll take them to the county morgue, then they'll ship them off to Atlanta for them to be identified and have the more official reports and autopsies made on the bodies.

But since it will be a few days before they can even ship them, the do what they can with the evidence supplied by the cabin and Rick interviews Daryl and Jon about the cabin. Daryl makes sure to tell him that he's very sure that it wasn't there two years ago. He hasn't found it by now probably because he doesn't venture to this particular section of the woods very often.

After both Daryl and Jon are questioned, Sheriff Grimes tells them that they will probably get in touch with them if they have any more questions or information. When they finish that they both decided on getting the card from the game camera and going back to Jon's place. Daryl doesn't say a single thing on the way back and neither does Jon.

When they walk through the door Esther eagerly greets them with her excited whines, and supper is already waiting so they put everything they have down and go to the table, their minds still reeling over the days events.

Now they're all seated around the dinner table, eating silently. Well, that's what they're doing for the most part. Jon is eating, but not as enthusiastically as he would have previous to the events of the day, and Daryl is more or less digging around in his food, sluggishly taking little bites every now and then, but mostly staring blankly into his plate.

"Alright, what's the deal?" Diane's voice breaks the depressive silence.

Both Daryl and Jon's heads snap up, not immediately understanding her meaning.

Diane misinterprets their confession for something else. "If the food's not any good you can just tell me," she adds, crossing her arms.

"S'not that. Food's good," Daryl mumbles.

"How would you know?" Diane quips. "Ya barely even tasted it."

Daryl grimaces and eyes her harshly, but doesn't say anything. He looks over at Jon silently imploring him to tell her. After a couple of sessions with Daryl minutely nodding and Jon shaking his head, Jon sighs, this time shaking his head with resignation.

Jon looks over at Diane. "We found a murderer's cabin out in the woods," he says matter of factly.

Diane's eyes widen and she uncrosses her arms. "No fuckin' way," she says skeptically.

"Yeah, I fell inta their fuckin' underground lair… er sum'm," Daryl mumbles, sitting back in his chair as he begins gnawing the skin of his thumb anxiously.

"Wait… ya'll went in there. Are you stupid?" She says looking at both of them.

"We had to know, Diane. If we hadn't 'ave gone in there we wouldn't know. Would we? And then we'd have a bunch a maniacs runnin' around the woods an' we wouldn't know," Jon defends. Diane calms down, knowing what he said makes sense, but it doesn't mean she has to like it.

Remembering something Daryl said, she looks back at him. "You said you fell?" she asks. Daryl shrugs at her dismissively, still busy gnawing his thumb. "How far?"

Daryl's gaze shifts to the ceiling in thought, "prob'ly about…" his eyes go dull as he relives the moment, remembering, "… mm… 14 feet or so," he drawls slowly.

Diane's eyes go serious. "You okay?"

Daryl looks down and shifts uncomfortably. "I'm fine, ain't nothin' serious."

Diane didn't look like she believed him, but she didn't press it. They continue their depressing supper in silence.

Daryl has pretty much eaten all he's going to and now he's just playing with his fork like a four year old scooting it around in the plate.

"Daryl." He looks up at the sound of his name from Diane's voice. "You don't have to keep eating if you don't want to," she says sincerely. "I'm sure the dogs'll love ya for it," she attempts to joke. Daryl gives her a slightly appreciative look before pushing his chair back and lightly limping to the living room.

Diane watches with concern as he leaves the room; she looks at Jon, seeing him doing the same. "Is he okay? What the hell happened?" she asks him quietly.

Jon sucks air through his teeth before letting out a long sigh, "I don't know." He looks back to where he knows Daryl will most likely be sitting, confirming that he's out of earshot before he continues, "he said he woke up early this mornin' with someone sneakin' around in his house. When he found them they through a knife at him…" he hesitates before digging in his pocket producing a picture. "I found that in the cabin along with a bunch a' other pictures …" He holds the photo out to Diane and she takes it.

She looks down at it and studies it for a moment, eyes bulging, then looks back at Jon, mouth opening and closing trying to form a response, but a worthy one continues to elude her. She looks back at the photo shaking her head, finally able to put words together, albeit simple ones, "that's bad."

Jon scoffs at the understatement.

She puts the picture on the table, food completely forgotten, and gets up. She walks to the living room and sees Daryl hunched over on the couch, elbows resting on his knees and his hands covering his face. She can't quite tell, but she thinks she can hear him quietly mumbling to himself. She approaches the couch and Daryl looks up at her wiping his face. She stops at the end of the couch that he's sitting on. "I heard what happened this morning…" she says, and Daryl looks down and hums in response. "You know you can spend the night here if you want," she proposes, knowing he's probably not ready to go home and be alone.

Daryl looks back at her skeptically. "Really?" he says, a hint of hope in his voice.

"Of course, I don't see why not. You can use Joe's room, since he's not living here anymore." She shrugs. And she notices that some of the darkness in Daryl's expression relaxes just a fraction.

When she sits down on the other end of the couch Jon walks in with his laptop in hand. "Ready ta look at the game camera pictures?" he asks, feigning excitement.

Daryl shift on his end of the couch. "… sure."

Jon gets his Laptop set up to the TV and puts in the cards from the first camera. He clicks through the photos on slide show, not revealing anything too exciting. There are a few photos of some doe milling around, occasionally looking up at the camera and then disappearing from view. There's a picture of a raccoon walking through the grass and then the next picture shows that it's gone. There are even pictures of Jon's hound dogs, which isn't too surprising; those damn things get in everything.

He finishes clicking through the photos and it rolls back to the first one on the card. "Well, looks like it's time for yer camera, Daryl," he says looking over at him with an unreadable look. Daryl stiffens and sits up straighter.

"Put it in there," Daryl demands and Diane looks over, studying him. Daryl glances at her briefly before fixing his gaze back on the screen.

"Alright, let's see what we got…" Jon clicks through the photos, a little faster than he did with his, hoping with each passing photo that they will continue to be normal as they were. He keeps clicking, seeing the passing photos of a doe, a random dog, even a bob cat, which is a little more uncommon, but more welcome that what they could see. They continue to be mundane images until he reaches some of the night photos. He flicks through the first few quickly just as he did with the other ones.

"Wait, wait. Go back," Daryl says quickly. Jon's reaction is delayed and the photo he finally ends up stopping on probably reveals more than what Daryl thinks he saw in the first few.

They all gape at the screen, not real certain they completely understand what they're looking at.

"What the hell?" Daryl finally says, snapping everyone out of their trances. The image is the back view of someone dragging a large, black, filled garbage bag behind them. They're wearing a long coat with a hood, so there isn't much to tell them who it was, other than going by the size of them. This person is bigger than the person in the photo with Daryl.

"What's the next one?" Diane asks and Jon clicks to the next one, but there isn't anything in it. Whoever they were, were moving fast.

Jon clicks through the rest of them, but they don't see any more photos of the mystery person. He disconnects his laptop from the TV and puts Dish Network back on. They sit there staring at the TV without really watching it.

"I gotta smoke," Daryl announces curtly and walks out to the porch.

Diane waits until he shuts the door before speaking to Jon. "Daryl's spending the night."

Jon looks at her. "Oh, he is?" he asks.

"Yeah, he is. He's stayin' in Joe's room."

He simply nods. "Good," he replies, petting his cat, Shrimpy, that's sitting on his armrest.

* * *

"These are Joe's. They should fit good enough." Diane hands Daryl a small stack of clothes for him to sleep in. Daryl takes it and frowns when he sees the corner of a neatly folded pair of SpongeBob Squarepant's themed pajama bottoms peeking out from underneath a white t-shirt. He pulls out the bottoms and holds them up, eyeing them with his nose scrunched up, as much as the swelling would allow, and his upper lip curled up into a snarl, making his disdain very clear. He looks over at her raising an eyebrow, as if to say 'Really?' She can't help but laugh at him.

"What?" she chuckles, "SpongeBob's cool." He sighs, bringing the hand holding the bottoms down to his side.

"It's not that.. It's jus'…" He shakes his head and scowls.

"Yo don't gotta wear 'em if you don't want to, but yer only other option is just yer underwear."

Daryl's eyebrows go up to his hairline. "Wouldn't it bother you if I ran around in my boxers?"

She laughs. "Me?… No. But Jon… it'd prob'ly bother him. That's why I gave these to you," she says gesturing to the bottoms. Daryl growls and looks at the them again.

"Fine. I'll wear the stupid pants," he mutters lowly and closes the bedroom door after Diane walks out. He throws his boots off and tiredly undresses and changes into the clothes Diane brought him. Daryl sighs and drops his clothes on floor and sluggishly crawls up the bed. He drops down, two-thirds of the way, onto his stomach with his legs hanging off the bed up to his knees and lets out a pain filled grown.

He fuckin' hurts… everywhere, he's tired, and he's mentally exhausted on top of that. He's very grateful that they let him stay here for the night. He doesn't think he would have been able to stop anyone from breaking into his house and doing whatever to him because he feels like complete utter shit. He doesn't think he'd be able to sleep either if he was at home, only maximizing his torture. And he figures once he did get to sleep it would take a lot to wake him.

His consciousness slowly fades as his mind continues to ramble on and before he's completely numb to the world he's vaguely aware of the feeling of hands helping him into bed and underneath the covers.

* * *

Diane sighs and goes to the living room to hand Jon a cold beer.

"How is he?" Jon asks, noticing that Daryl hasn't come back out of the room yet.

"He seemed okay, but he's tired… and in pain, even though he was trying to hide it."

"Maybe you could give him something," Jon suggests.

"Yeah, I think I should." Diane turns around and goes to the kitchen and considers her options. She decides that she'll give him the choice of either taking three extra strength Tylenol or Hydrocodone, which would be more affective for his pain. She fills up a glass with water and takes the pills to the room Daryl's staying in.

She opens the door to the bedroom and stops in place seeing Daryl sprawled out on his stomach on the bed, his legs half hanging off, as though he was too tired to make it all the way up the bed. If it weren't for the light raspy breathing she might have thought he was dead. Her heart aches for him when she hears his pain filled groan. She knows he hasn't had it easy and a lot of it couldn't be helped because it had already been done, and now is definitely no exception. And right now he's hurting, but that's something she can help with, even if only temporarily.

"Daryl," she softly calls out to him, but he doesn't respond. She sets the glass and pills down on top of the dresser that's by the door.

She walks over to Daryl's side and gently shakes his shoulder. "Daaryl," she says closer to his ear.

"Huh," Daryl grunts out and opens his eyes a sliver.

"I brought you some pills for the pain, d'ya want ta take 'em?" Diane asks and Daryl closes his eyes and just lays there.

"Hey, d'you hear me?" she asks, shaking his shoulder again.

Daryl exhales deeply and shifts his body a little. "Yeah," he grunts out before sluggishly pushing his upper body off the bed and turning around, sitting up on the edge of the bed. Daryl's squinting at her with a deep scowl, so that his eyes look like slits, and his forehead is creased with pain.

"What'da say ya had?" he slurs out hoarsely.

"You can either take these extra strength Tylenols or you can take this Hydrocodone…" she trails off holding her hands out, each containing one of the two options. Daryl squints at each of his options and his scowl deepens even further in thought. After a moment of hesitation he reaches out for the Hydrocodone and takes it out of her hand. She hands him the glass of water and he swallows it, then noisily chugs down the rest of the water. She takes the glass and sets it back on the dresser along with the Tylenol.

"Now that's done, we can get you in bed… the right way," Diane says and Daryl grunts. When he goes to stand up he begins leaning to the side and stumbles trying to regain his balance almost falling over, but Diane reinforces his weight and helps guides him into the bed. She can tell he hasn't been eating well for some time now when she places a hand on his side for support and feels that his ribs are more prominent than they should be. She makes a note in her head that she should invite him over for supper more.

When she gets him situated in bed, she gathers his clothes, deciding that she'll wash them for him. She takes out his guns, clips, knife, wallet, and phone and sets them on the table beside the bed and grabs the glass and Tylenol before leaving the room and only shutting the door halfway as she sees a black cat dart through the doorway and onto the bed.

She chuckles to herself, thinking that over the years Daryl has stolen Jon's cat. Thinking about that makes her think about how Daryl was when they first met about five years ago. He and Jon had really only just starting getting along. He wasn't nearly as open with them as he is now; he was much more guarded, but it's not too hard to understand why when you take a step back, away from the crowd, and really see how unfairly people were treating him for sharing the last name of someone everyone hated; they all just assumed that he'd be the same way. 'The apple doesn't fall far from the tree' type of thing. But when Jon and her moved to Georgia, to this little nobody town, it gave them a fresh perspective of things without the persuasion of the towns biased thoughts swaying their opinions. But even then, Jon gives people a chance, to prove that they're the asshole everyone really says they are, so Jon would have figured out that Daryl's not the dirty redneck he gets accused of anyway.

Daryl started opening up to them more when he finally figured out that they weren't going to stab him in the back. And in a way, for both of them, he become like the little brother that they never had. Sometimes even he and Jon would team up and proceed to annoy the hell out of her. Sometimes they succeed in going way too far and completely pissed her off, which usually makes Daryl feel bad after the fact and would always find her to apologize, but she brushed it off, "Oh, don't worry about it. It ain't no big deal." And they'd laugh it off.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: I just want to give y'all a reminder that this story **_**IS**_** rated M for a reason… DISTURBING CONTENT in this chapter! **

**...You… Have... Been... Warned...**

**REVIEW AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK or if you want to just discuss it. When I get reviews it makes me happy, which in turn makes me write faster.**

**I don't own The Walking Dead.**

Chapter 8

The first thing that he's aware of is the hot, burning pain of hunger filling his stomach. When he opens his eyes he's greeted with the sight of absolute darkness, but also the sickeningly familiar scent of mildew, motor oil, and rust. His breathing hitches as the panic begins to settle in his chest.

He looks around in vain. He can't tell where exactly he lays, but wherever he is it's cold and damp and he can hear the echo of a continual drip off in the distance somewhere. He can feel the cold cement floor underneath his bare ass with the damp air drafting over his naked skin, making him shiver. He quickly brings his arms up to cover his chest, in an attempt to warm himself, only for his arms to be violently jolted to a stop half way. His eyes bulge in realization, but he refuses to accept it.

He attempts again much more desperately only to have the action end with the same result. He grunts at the sting of the metal digging into his skin, but he doesn't care, he's overwhelmed with the need to get out of here. He continues yanking on the chains, wheezing out fast, shallow breaths. He can feel the slick, hot liquid ooze out of his wrists, shocking in contrast to the cold room, but he doesn't care. He _has_ to get out before _he_ comes down.

He freezes when he hears the familiar squeak of the heavy metal door from above. Daryl swallows thickly, dread seeping into every atom of his being. But something seems different about this time.

When the light spews down from above, he gets the first glimpse of his surroundings that Daryl now wished he would have never been privy to. Blades, chains, everywhere. It's these images that make him aware of the salty, iron scent wafting over from that side of the room that he hadn't noticed before.

Daryl is so transfixed on the bloody instruments he doesn't notice when the light is cut off and replaced by candle light. He feels a hard kick to his foot and he flinches, looking up to see his father, Will, leaning in real close, grinning at him deviantly. "Well, looky who finally woke up."

Daryl attempts scooting away but the chains cuffed to his wrist limit his distance. He tries looking away, but Will harshly grabs his chin and forces his head towards his scowling face. "Look at me, boy!" he growls harshly, then his face splits into a grin, "Ya need ta watch." He pats Daryl's cheek playfully with a cackle showing off his rotten teeth.

He backs up and flips his hand in the air, he hears the rattle of chains a second before four cloaked figures appear out from the darkness of the room. Will stops smiling and his face goes dead serious. "Take off his restraints," he orders standing back, hands on his hips.

The figures approach him swiftly reaching out to grab a different part of him, one gripping a wad of his hair and the back of his neck harshly, forcing his face down painfully to his knees. Daryl lets out a pained yelp when the action forces the cuffs to pull his wrist and twist his arm into a very unnatural position.

As soon as Daryl feels the cuffs leave his skin, he springs forward, trying to escape the figures looming presence. His sudden movements throw them off because they weren't prepared, so he unsteadily rushes past them, pushing them away in the process. He feels as though he might actually get away until his hope is wiped away by the iron tight arms gripping around his abdomen throwing him hard to the ground, making him lose focus and concentration.

His eyes focus again, his heart pounding as he sees his dad sneering down at him. "Looks like ya still a piece shit. Never was one much for gettin' one past ya ole man." His scowl deepens, "Ain't good fer nothin'." He stops and a thoughtful look crosses his face, then a slow, evil, knowing smile splits his face. Daryl shutters, never having seen that look before… on anyone's face, and is terrified of what the reason behind that look could mean.

He pushes himself backwards across the floor, attempting to get away from him, unknowingly pushing himself right into the arms of the figures standing behind them. They grab him underneath his arms and yank him from the ground, holding him in place despite his struggling.

Will approaches Daryl slowly, grin still in place. "There's only _one _thing ya'd be good fer." Will's eyes roam Daryl's body, lingering on the scars that the wavering candle light made visible, making Daryl feel self conscious. He wishes he could just fall into a hole and disappear. Will takes out his buck knife and lightly trails it across Daryl's stomach. He sucks in his stomach, trying to avoid the contact, but it only results in him pressing the blade harder into his skin. He stops at a thin scar curling around his right ribs.

"I remember when I made this one. You were just a little shit, bouncin' around the house. I'd told ya not ta bring tha' mangy mutt inta my house. An ya know what?... The next day I come home, the first thang tha' happens when I step through tha' door… is I step in dog shit." Will chuckles darkly. "I remember I was so fuckin' pissed off." He looks up for a moment as his eyes go dark, his smirk still in place. "I fuckin' put that bitch in a bag, and then I threw it in the river. You could hear it cryin' all the way down.

"The best part was watchin' ya face as it slowly sunk into the river, 'Daddy no. Please don't kill 'im!'" he imitates in a high pitched tone. He scoffs, "You never did stop fuckin' up." He trails the knife over to his other scars. "All a these marks… are indications of every time you've fucked up one thing er another." He grabs Daryl's face again, mashing his cheeks forward making his lips pucker, forces eye contact. "Ya a fuck up, Daryl, and ther's only one thing yer good fer."

Daryl's blood runs cold at the look in his father's eyes. Suddenly he's being man handled over to the corner of the room. He tries fighting them but their grips are impossibly tight. He flails his right arm out trying to knock the person holding his waist off of him, but another person grabs his arm and thrusts it behind him, dislocating it with an audible pop. Daryl screams as pain shoots down the right side of his body and tries to free his useless arm, but they force it further behind his back. He loses what little control of the situation that he could have gained. He continues struggling to free himself, but each of them are grabbing him in several different places, gaining leverage; he can feel someone gripping painfully onto his penis, successfully making him feel trapped in their grasps.

They wrestle him on his back onto an operating table and strap his wrists and ankles into the leather restraints.

Will leans forward and studies his terrified son. He watches as he makes futile attempts of freeing himself of the restraints, all the while watching his stomach intently as it bobs up and down quickly with each frightened breath he takes.

Daryl can't help but feel fear as he watches the many different expressions pass his father's face. But the one that scares him the most is the look of lust currently plastered on his face, while his gaze is locked onto his stomach, as though he's looking through his skin and trying to see his insides. He would hold his breath if he didn't already feel like his lungs were burning for air.

Suddenly the air changes to something more sinister. Everybody presses down on his shoulders, arms, and chest. Will grabs his right hand firmly, squeezing hard into a knuckle with his thumb and index finger, keeping Daryl from yanking it away and keeping it spread outward.

Before he can think of anything else he feels the tip of a serrated knife grind into the outside of knuckle to his index finger. Sharp blinding pain overcomes him when he feels the blade sawing through his finger.

Daryl screams out only to be cut off by one of them clamping down on his throat, leaving the rest of his scream a gargled cry.

He tries, but he can't stop the tears when they began flowing down from his eyes. _Why?! Why would he do this to me?_ Daryl sobs. _Why don't he_ love _me?! _He closes his eyes, letting the pain overcome him as the tears fell down his cheeks.

He opens his eyes when he feels hot, slimy fingers pat his cheek and he's met with green eyes looking back. "Ain't no time for sleepin', son... Ya have to watch," Will says adamantly.

Daryl's stomach growls, breaking the perturbing silence, and it catches Will's attention. He breaks eye contact to looks down at it with his eyebrows raised.

"Ya hungry, Daryl?" he asks, reaching a hand out patting his belly. Daryl swallows nervously, not liking the edge present in Will's voice. "Well I see ya hadn't been steelin' any a my food lately."

Will smirks deviously. "An' since ya been a good boy, I think I can help ya wit' tha'." He cackles, making his eyes crinkle, and he holds up Daryl's severed finger between his, shaking it for emphasis. And just as Daryl realizes what he's thinking, Will's already acting.

"Hold his head," he orders curtly. His head is forced down smashing the back of it into the table. They're crushing the sides of his head painfully, only allowing him to look forward at the ceiling.

Will's head comes into view and he roughly grabs Daryl's jaw, ripping open his mouth. He begins forcefully stuffing his finger into Daryl's mouth, but Daryl direfully tries blocking it with his tongue and it slightly works, which pisses Will off. He slaps Daryl hard in the face, stunning him into submission.

He forcefully shoves it down Daryl's throat and Daryl gags as his finger gets stuck in his trachea and he begins choking on it and coughing desperately. Will punches Daryl in the stomach and his finger dislodges and continues its journey down his throat.

He can feel it sliding all the way down and then sit there at the bottom of his stomach like a disgusting blob. He can feel his eyes stinging with new tears as he gags again, feeling like he's about to throw up, but Will covers his mouth with a firm hand. "You best not throw up," he warns.

He can feel the bile rising into his throat and he forcefully swallows it back down, with his eyes leaking fiercely, before he starts choking on it because Will isn't letting up. Even though he feels if he did manage to throw up, his finger would probably get hung up on the way and stay where it is.

He heaves miserably, making his muscles begin to cramp from the strain while he also feels the stomach acid burning the back of his throat. Will seems pleased and unpleased at the same time by this. "Not good enough for ya?" he asks, cocking his head to the side and removes his hand from Daryl's mouth. Daryl can't reply, he's too busy swallowing the extra saliva being produced in his mouth and focusing on not puking.

"No?" he asks, "Cat got ya tongue.. huh?" He rubs Daryl's stomach and looks down at it, raising his buck knife. He looks back at Daryl, meeting his eyes. "I think I want it back."

Daryl's pupils dilate and his heart begins beating out of his chest. For the first time he's able to get his vocal chords to work. "NO!" he screams.

Will looks at him with excitement. The knife descends closer to his skin and Daryl begins feeling desperate. "NOO! Daddy… P-_PLLLEEASE_!" Daryl begs, biting back another sob.

Will cackles and presses the edge of the knife into the skin about an inch above his bellybutton. Daryl's begging sobs dissolve into screams of bloody murder as he slices through his skin all the way across the width of his abdomen. The pain was sharp and he could feel himself going into shock.

Will delves his hand into Daryl's stomach cavity and he can feel him digging around inside, squishy noises meeting his ears. He feels him start to tug on something and he sees him start pulling out his intestines and laying them beside him on the table.

Daryl shudders and begins screaming uncontrollably.

_This is it. This is how I die._

His insides are basically mush by the time Will's done. He doesn't know how he's still alive. He can feel himself fading. He can hear his screams fading.

They unrestrain him from the table and drag him off. He limply falls to the floor letting them slide his body across it, his entrails trailing along the floor beside him.

They throw him on top of a pile of bodies, bodies that he suddenly recognizes as the ones in the cabin from the woods. He moves his eyes around in their sockets and sees that he's lying in the underground level of the cabin as well. He looks over and Will's in his face again. "I didn't quite get it… I gotta go in again." He cackles and raises his knife, Daryl's blood still dripping from it.

Daryl's eyes snap open with a gasp. He feels the bile rise up from his stomach. He desperately rips the covers off his sweaty skin, throwing them on top of the unsuspecting cat lying beside him, and quickly stumbles to the door, clipping his shoulder on the doorway on the way out. He makes a beeline for the toilet in the bathroom across the hall and starts retching noisily into the bowl. Nothing but small amounts of stomach acid and other fluids come out, splashing in the bowl. He can't breathe even though he can feel the air going in and out of his lungs. He continues dry heaving, groaning with each painful contraction, his body curving inward. The pressure in his face makes it feel like his head is going to explode. He's vaguely aware of the hot liquid pouring from his nose.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Diane is in bed at 2:00am, reading from her phone, with Jon asleep beside her. She's just getting into another chapter of her story when she hears a dull smack, then stumbling in the hallway. She waits for a moment, figuring that's its Daryl out there. She flinches a little when she begins hearing painful sounding retching coming from the bathroom.

She gets up, wanting to make sure Daryl's okay. She gets up and walks out to the bathroom and sees Daryl hunched over the toilet boil, dry heaving. She feels a spike of fear well up in her when she sees the blood smeared all over his face. She quickly gets a wash cloth and runs some water over it. She approaches him slowly when it looks like he's nearing the end of his dry heaving. She gently places a hand on his shoulder. He looks over at her with red, watery eyes and she hands him the cloth. He grabs it from her, with a shaking hand, and wipes his face and neck.

"Better?" Diane asks, but Daryl doesn't respond; in fact, she's not even sure that he hears her.

Daryl's trembling worsens and his breathing quickens. He falls back into the junction where the bathtub and wall meet while hugging his stomach, his eyes wide.

Diane approaches slowly, being sure to leave space between them. "Daryl you have to breathe slower."

"I c-ca-an't," he wheezes out through his breaths, "breathe."

"Daryl look at me," she demands and he does, although the face he's making makes her feel like she might cry. She's never seem him look so vulnerable. She takes in a shaky breath of her own. "Breath with me, okay. In through yer nose and out yer mouth, like this." She follows by demonstrating and trying to get him to breathe with her. And for the record, he tries, but with each failed attempt he just keeps getting more worked up, making it harder for him to control it.

Diane gives up the concept of space and places a hand on Daryl's back, rubbing soothingly, as she speaks softly in Daryl's ear. "Come on Daryl, you can do it." Daryl only grips his abdomen tighter and starts wheezing, his breaths hitching on the ends. Diane starts to panic. She can't figure out how to calm him down. What do you for someone who's having a panic attack?

She's not sure he even hears her anymore.

He begins frantically coughing and choking, trying to gasp for air, and small bits of blood spatter the corner of his lips. His gasps slow down and his eyes roll up into the back of his skull, leaving only the white visible. He exhales deeply and slumps over onto to Diane's shoulders.

Diane gently places him on the floor and quickly checks his pulse, the sudden fear that he might have died taking over. She's relieved to see that he hasn't, he just passed out. She grabs the cloth from earlier and picks up his head, placing it in her lap. She finds a clean corner and wipes the new blood from his face. She figures that he must have busted some capillaries in his nose during his dry heaving. It's the only thing that makes since. She refuses to think it would be from anything else.

She rubs his jaw soothingly, looking down at his unconscious face wondering what the hell was going on in his brain. She notes that his skin feels hotter than normal and moves a sweaty strand of hair that's obstructing her view before placing a hand on his forehead. She can tell he has, at least, a low-grade fever. She's never seen him act this way about anything and it concerns her. The feeling of tears pricks her eyes again. She bites her lip as she gently places his head back on the floor.

She quickly goes back to her bedroom and shakes Jon awake.

"Jon, I need you to help me with Daryl."

Jon stirs awake and grunts irritably before rasping, "What about him?"

"He passed out in the bathroom. I need you to move 'im to Joe's bedroom. He's too heavy for me to move him that far."

Jon lies there looking bemused for a moment, sleep still overtaking his features. "He's in the..." He looks at her. "He's not naked is he?"

"No. But even if he was, yer still helpin' me. Now get yer ass out of bed!" she says impatiently.

Jon sighs and throws the blankets off of his body and stomps to the bathroom and through the doorway. He stops abruptly when he sees Daryl lying on the floor, blood dripping from his nose.

"What happened?" he asks as he approaches him, concern evident in his voice.

"I don't know… I was in our room and I could hear him throwing up. I came over here to see if he was okay and he started having a panic attack. I couldn't get him to calm down." Her voice shakes a little. "I tried, but he passed out."

Jon crouches down over Daryl and studies him before he begins pulling him up, his head lolling to the side as he does. He throws Daryl over his shoulder and carries him out to Joe's bedroom. Diane follows them closely.

"Get out of the way, Shrimpy!" Jon yells at the cat lying right in Daryl's spot. Shrimpy looks at him with wide eyes. He gets up but doesn't move out of the way.

Diane groans. "I'll get him," she says as she picks him up and moves him to the foot of the bed.

Jon drops Daryl on the bed with a sigh.

"We should wait for him to wake up," Diane insists as she sits down on the edge of the bed, petting Shrimpy.

"Yeah," Jon says, settling himself down in the desk chair beside the bed. He looks back at Daryl's unconscious form and notices a splotch of blood forming at his shoulder. Diane must have noticed at the same time because she approaches him and grabs the bottom of his shirt, making to pull it up.

"You know he won't like that," Jon warns, crossing his arms.

"Yeah well, sometimes it can't be helped. We can get him another shirt from one of these drawers." She pulls his shirt off over his head and barely controls the gasp that threatens to leave her mouth while she hears a muffled "shit" behind her. He has dark bruises decorating his abdomen, some over his ribs, but what really catches her attention among all the scars scattered along his skin is the long, rough indentation going along the width of his stomach above his belly button. The intensity of the mark lets her know that when it happened it wasn't properly taken care of.

She pretends to not notice any of it and focuses her attention on the white bandage on his shoulder that's slowly being drenched in blood. She peels it off and inspects the wound. It's red and slightly puffy around the stitches that she assumes he did himself. She sees that he popped a couple of them, which is causing the bleeding.

She stands up to leave. "I'm gonna go get some disinfectant stuff."

"Yer just gonna leave me here to deal with him?" Jon asks, concerned.

"I'll be right back," she says dismissively over her shoulder as she walks out of the room.

Jon frowns and looks back at Daryl lying there with his mouth slightly hanging open. He feels for the guy, he really does. Daryl's really his only true friend. He has other friends, but none of them would have his back when he needed it most like Daryl would. He's good like that. So of course, he feels bad for him, but that doesn't change the fact that he doesn't want to be stuck in the room with him all alone when he wakes up. He's not exactly a nurturing type of guy and he's not prepared for how he'll act once he's awake; he has no idea what he'll do.

Jon's eyes dart back to Daryl's form when he hears a quiet moan, and jumps when Daryl suddenly gasps and sits up. He looks down at his stomach and notices he doesn't have a shirt. Daryl lets out a panicked whine and begins panting while desperately looking around, and then practically throws himself off the bed. Jon stands up quickly.

"Daryl where ya goin?" Jon asks, blocking the exit as Daryl makes a desperate run for the door.

"I have to get out.." Jon grabs Daryl's arms and Daryl tries to yank them away desperately. "Let me go!" he squalls, panicked.

Jon tightens his grip as Daryl nearly yanks him off. "Daryl! You need to calm down," he says, trying to hold his arms down. Daryl flails his arms trying to loosen his grip, racking sobs shaking his body violently.

"Get the fuck off me!" Daryl screams, this time almost unintelligible. Jon continues fighting for a grip on him as he spastically flails his arms in a desperate attempt to get free.

Diane comes running into the room. "Daryl it's okay. Yer gonna be okay," she tries, but Daryl continues frantically struggling.

"No! I don't want to go back!" he pleads and continues to fight Jon's grip as hard as he can. Jon's trying to hold down his arms, getting hit in the process, and keep him away from the door all the while Daryl keeps ripping his arms from his grasp, wailing incoherently.

Jon's inability to get Daryl to calm down starts pissing him off and he does the last thing he can think of. He slaps Daryl in the face with a hard, angry smack and Daryl goes flying to the floor with a thunk. He sees Diane approach him quickly from the corner of his eye.

"What the hell, Jonathan?" Diane pushes him roughly. Jon looks at her and then looks down at Daryl, guilt immediately consuming him when he sees his friend lying on his stomach on the floor trembling under his racking sobs, the sound of each whimper making his stomach churn. He grits his teeth and kneels down beside him with Diane, who's already kneeling beside him. He doesn't know what to say to him, so he doesn't. He just settles for watching Diane pick Daryl's front half up and hug his head to her chest so that he's crying on her shirt. She whispers comforting words to him as she pets his hair soothingly. He lazily wraps his arms around her waist for support, wadding up the shirt at her back with his fierce grip.

"He c-cut my fin-ger off.." Daryl squeaks out between sobs. Both of them look at him oddly as though he had just spoken in a foreign language.

"Who did?" Jon asks, not understanding what the hell he was even talking about, but just going along with it.

"He force f-fe-ed it to me-e," he stammers and both of them look at each other with wide eyes.

"….who did?" Jon asks again.

"Th-then.. then he c-cut my sto-mach open an'-an'..." He cuts himself off with another wave of sobs. Jon and Diane look at each other again, both just working out that he must be talking about a nightmare.

"Let's get you off the floor," Diane says to Daryl. She looks over at Jon. "Help me."

They both help support Daryl up on his wobbly legs and walk him to the bed. Daryl collapses and wads himself in the covers. Diane sets herself on the side of the bed and Jon moved the chair closer before sitting. Only Daryl's face is visible from the burrito he made himself into with the covers. They can tell he's still shaken, but his breathing is more evened out, so they relax slightly.

* * *

Daryl can't get the feeling of Will's hands digging around in his stomach out of his head. He knows that it didn't _really_ happen, but that doesn't make it any less real to him. It makes his skin crawl every time he remembers the way it felt to have the tugging sensation from inside of him, pulling in places he's never felt anything from before; it makes him want to throw up all over again. But the cramping in his abdomen tells him that there wasn't anything to throw up the first time. He looks over at his friends and it reminds him that he isn't with Will. He's alive, and Will's dead. He just had a really messed up dream. _A_ _really fucked up dream, _he thinks to himself.

He can feel himself nodding off again but he's afraid of what he'll see when he does. When he passed out earlier, he went back... right where it left off. Will did things… things he'd never want to tell _anyone_.

"I don't want to go back," he croaks out, his voice huskier than normal from crying.

"Go back?" Diane asks innocently.

Daryl looks at her with his red, puffy eyes. "To my daddy's basement," he says quietly.

Her eyes widen a fraction and both her and Jon stay quiet for a very long time, afraid of saying the anything that might upset him.

Diane gets up and goes to get something that Daryl can't see past the limitation of his self-made burrito, but when she comes back he sees she's carrying fresh gauze and disinfectant.

"I need to see yer wound," she says to him, and he eyes her for a moment before unrolling a corner of his burrito to expose his shoulder. Diane giggles at his reluctance to leave the covers. Diane looks over to Jon. "I got it from here. You can go back to bed if you want."

Jon looks at her and then at Daryl, guilt still evident in his eyes.

"Go ahead, Jon, I'm okay," Daryl rasps. Jon nods at him and heads off to go back to bed.

Diane looks at his shoulder and frowns. "You busted the rest of yer stitches," she says, wiping the blood away, "and it's a little infected. You'll prob'ly need to take some antibiotics an' someone's gonna need ta restitch it." She looks at Daryl. "I can do it or you can, it's yer choice."

"I don' think I could, even if I wanted," Daryl says as he raises his exposed hand up, showing her its fierce tremble.

"Alright," she says and without warning sprays the disinfectant on his wound. Daryl hisses from the sting and wraps the arm still gripped in the blanket tighter around his chest.

"Sorry. Should've warned ya," she says. She pulls out the useless stitches and gets ready to begin putting in new ones. "Okay here we go. Shouldn't take too long."

Diane is just about done with the stitches when Daryl's stomach resounds a series of growls, long and low. Daryl's face heats up and his heart beats faster from fear and embarrassment as he sinks deeper into the mattress. The events from his dream are still fresh in his mind, even though he knows it's unreasonable to even relate the two situations. He tenses and sucks in his stomach in an attempt to keep it quiet, but it didn't work when he was a kid and it doesn't work now. It growls out louder this time. His face feels like it's on fire, and he can feel himself breaking out in a cold sweet, making him shiver.

He looks up nervously, but instead of seeing an evil grin or even a grin at all he sees Diane's concerned face frowning down at him. She hesitates before speaking. "D'you think you can handle a cup of broth, 'cause you need to take some ibuprofen for yer fever?" she asks before stepping back from the bed and going to the dresser. She digs through it for a t-shirt.

Daryl swallows and considers her question. He's fucking starving; it feels like his stomach's trying to digest itself, but at the same time he's worried he won't be able to keep anything down. But even if he can't keep it down, it'll feel nice to not have an empty stomach, if only for a moment.

He nods his head when she steps back to side of the bed.

Diane smiles at him and drops a black Pantera t-shirt before turning to leave the room.

Daryl reaches out and awkwardly pulls the shirt over his head. He sighs and sinks down further into the bed, wrapping himself back in his blanket burrito and ignores his grumbling stomach while he waits.

Diane comes back about a minute later and stops in the doorway with the mug in hand and smiles at him.

"What?" Daryl asks hoarsely.

"You just don't understand how adorable you look right now," she says through her smile.

Daryl's face heats up again. "Shut up," he mumbles bashfully. Diane giggles and walks over and gives him the mug. He holds it with a shaky hand and takes measured sips, the warm liquid soothing the ache in his belly. She hands him some pills and he takes and swallows them down with the broth.

"If you don't want to go back to sleep you can watch the TV." She looks around and grabs a remote and places it on the bedside table. "If you want anything else you can get it in the kitchen. Also, Daryl," she says, placing a soft hand on his shoulder and he looks up meeting her eyes, "I'm here, if you ever want to talk about anything." Daryl nods and she turns to leave.

"Diane," he calls. She stops and he reaches up and gently squeezes her forearm affectionately. "Thanks."

She smiles at him and pats his shoulder. "Don't worry about it. It's what friends are for. Oh… I bet I could find some Spongebob for ya ta watch." She smiles deviously.

"Get out a here," Daryl says rolling his eyes.

She turns and leaves the room laughing. Daryl enjoys the rest of his broth before turning on the TV with Shrimpy curled up beside him.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: I'm so sorry that I have not posted in so long. I'm not going to waste time giving excuses, but I will try not to let it happen for so long again. Also I'm not going to just up and quite on this story. This chapter is a bit longer than my norm. I hope you like it because it took me a while to get everything up to par (or as close to it as I can get it). I apologize for any mistakes in my story that I didn't catch because I know they can be annoying. My beta is away at the moment and she can't really get to my stuff, so this chapter didn't have one. **

**Also, I apologize to those who might have noticed that I keep changing my summary. I'm trying to give my story a summary that might actually give the reader a hint of what the story is about, and I'm pretty sure I got it this time and I intend for it to stay what it is now… but I'm not making any promises.**

**Anyway! Please review and let me know what you think.**

Chapter 10

Diane opens the door to Daryl's room and looks in. He looks like a beat up little boy lying there with his arm curled around Shrimpy and his crazy hair sticking in different directions. She can tell that he didn't fall back asleep on purpose. The TV is still on, though the Dish had turned itself off and only the message is floating on the screen, and he has the remote gripped in his hand.

She approaches his sleeping form, studying his face, hoping that his night was restful. It doesn't look like he's having a nightmare... or anything at all, really. His face looks completely relaxed, despite all of the bruising. She spies the forming of a new bruise stretching across his left cheek in the shape of a hand. Her irritation at Jon flairs up all over again. Huffing, she walks up beside the bed.

"Daryl," she calls out, refraining from shaking him just in case he would have a negative reaction.

He stirs with a deep intake of breath and moans. He turns his head to look over his shoulder at her with tired eyes, eyebrows furrowed and his bottom lip sticking out just the slightest.

"How ya feel?" she asks him. He blinks for a few seconds and slowly scoots himself backwards into more of a sitting position, leaning against the headboard.

"I feel fine, I guess," he rasps sleepily, stretching his arms above his head, grimacing slightly when it pulls at his stitches.

"Ya hungry?"

Daryl closes his eyes, a sound coming from his throat that's something like a cross with a hum and a growl while he thinks. "I'm sure I could eat," he says gruffly.

"I didn't know if you still felt nauseous, so I wanted to give you a choice…" she trails off.

"French toast," Daryl says quickly and Diane almost laughs.

Daryl looks down slightly embarrassed by his eagerness, "I hadn't had French toast since I was a kid." He looks up again at her unsurely, "That's okay, right… French toast?"

She beams. "Oh, it's perfectly fine. It was one of the choices, actually." She pats his shoulder and he makes a face that looks more like a grimace than a smile. "I'll fix some French toast. Just come out when yer ready." She smiles at him then leaves the bedroom.

* * *

Daryl lies his throbbing head back on the pillow and stares at the ceiling, absentmindedly rubbing Shrimpy. That dream is the start of something he thought he had gotten over and it weighs him down with a heavy wave of depressing vexation that makes him feel hopeless. He heaves a big sigh and stiffly gets out of bed. His tousle with those men at the bar, along with his fight with Merle, is starting to catch up with him. His fall through the cabin floor yesterday certainly didn't help any; he gained a minor strain on his ankle and wicked bruises on his ass and back.

He rolls his shoulders in a circle, trying to loosen up his tight muscles, and spots a small mirror on the wall. He knows he probably looks terrible, but he walks over to it and inspects his face anyway. His prediction is accurate; in all honesty, he looks like shit. Anyone can tell by looking at his face how shitty of a night's sleep he had. He has dark bruises around his neck from being choked and both of his eyes are still black and swollen, making the bags under his eyes even more intense. But the swelling in his nose has gone down some, so he can at least tell that he did a pretty good job setting it. He smirks bitterly to himself. _Practice makes perfect_.

He runs his fingers through his hair so it won't look quite so wild and flinches at the unexpected sharp sting that comes from his cheek when his thumb lightly brushes across it. He stops combing his hair and leans closer to the mirror to examine his cheek and sees the raw, reddish purple coloration spanning from the corner of his mouth to the side of his head by his ear.

He touches it again lightly with his finger. Wherever the slight pressure lands makes his skin feel like it's being pricked by a thousand microscopic needles. He doesn't remember how it got there, but shrugs it off. It probably happened sometime last night… and there's a lot that he can't remember from last night. Whenever he tries to remember it only comes to him in bits and pieces, and what he _does_ remember makes him feel a twinge of embarrassment swirl in his belly; he hasn't been that bad after a dream since his early twenties. He's thankful that he can't remember all of the details from the incident.

The only thing he _can _remember from last night with perfect clarity is the fucked up dream he had. That was too damn realistic to forget.

He used to always have nightmares, every single night. It almost got to the point where he feared going to sleep because he knew that he would find himself back in his own personal hell. He couldn't get a good night's sleep. He managed to keep Merle from knowing about it, saved himself from more of his shit. To his relief, he managed to get a hold on them and they stopped.

Daryl sighs to himself. He thought he was fucking through with that shit, but apparently not. And there's also something else he finds really distressing about the dream. It left him with that lingering, dreadful, almost depressing feeling that people sometimes get after a weird dream.

But that's not what's really bothering him . What really freaks him out is the overwhelming nagging feeling that the dream was trying to tell him something, like a symbol or some kind of omen. Of course he's never believed in any of that before; he's always managed to convince himself that it's just load of horse shit. _Because that shit don't happen_. However, there was a similar instance with a dream back when he was a kid about a year after his ma died. Now the dream is a bit different, but it leaves him with the same feeling.

In the dream he was running from a pack of wild dogs in the woods, which resembled something along the lines of German shepherds, but they were _much_ bigger. His eight year old legs were working overtime to get himself away, but he made the mistake of looking back and nearly tripped over his feet at the sight of them chasing him.

They looked even scarier then; they didn't really look like dogs anymore. Their legs were too long and gangly, curved inward in an unnatural set. Their backs were arched up like a territorial cat, but with bumpy spines. And their heads bobbed up and down violently with each step. The damn things looked more like mutated hyenas than dogs. Its face though, won the award of biggest reasons to shit your pants. Their faces were partially skulls now, their teeth being exposed completely; dripping with fresh blood, blood that he _knew_ belonged to his mother. He didn't have to see it happen to know it.

He remembers it felt like he ran for what seemed like miles and all he could do was slow down while it seemed as though they sped up. The fear inside him reached its blowing point and he could no longer contain his panicked screaming. He screamed for help. He screamed for his mom, even though he knew she wouldn't come to save him, and he screamed for Merle, his best possible role model that his shitty life had to offer. But the difference between his mom and Merle was that Merle actually came.

He ran out from behind a large thicket, wearing his hunting clothes and holding his rifle. He looked at Daryl and frowned; Daryl barreled into Merle's body, hugging him tightly, gasping for air. Merle leaned forward, grasped Daryl's shoulder tightly and peeled him off. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

Daryl leaned back and frantically pointed behind him where he knew that the creatures were, "The dogs…" he panted. "They're comin', Merle!" he screamed and Merle just looked at him like he was stupid.

Daryl had looked back where he knew he just saw them, but noticed that they weren't there, but he could still hear them. It seemed as though they had slowed down and he outran them quite a ways.

"They're comin' for blood, Merle!" he screamed. "They're gonna eat me!"

The creatures popped into view and Merle twirled around and saw what he'd been talking about. He grabbed Daryl's bicep and yanked him forward. "Come on Daryl, this way."

Merle ran to a tall climbable tree while Daryl struggled to keep his footing and not get dragged across the ground. Merle stopped and pointed to a large cedar tree. "Alright Daryl, climb this 'ere tree and ya got nothin' ta worry about."

So he did. He climbed the tree as high as the limbs would support his weight, which wasn't much. The needles scratched his skin and made him itch as he climbed. When he found the highest place he stopped and looked down to see Merle walking away. "Merle!" he screamed at his disappearing back. He turned around and looked at him. "Merle! Ya not gonna leave me are ya?" Daryl could feel his eyes burning.

"Why? Ya don't need me; ya got ya a nice cozy tree to stay in. Watcha want me for?"

"Please!... Jus' don't leave me!" he screamed in a scratchy voice. "I don't want to be alone when they come!"

"You'll be fine." And with that he disappeared, literally faded away into the air. And the creatures found Daryl almost instantly. He was crying then. He was scared. There were at least eight of them and they all circled the tree. Daryl looked down at them with his blurry vision, finding a small amount of solace from the fact that they couldn't climb, but as soon as the thought entered his head they began crawling their way up the tree, like fuckin' bears. Daryl whined and tried to climb higher, that being his only escape, but the branches were way too thin and they snapped under his weight. He fell right into ravenous claws of the creatures and could instantly feel them clawing at his skin, ripping the meat from his bones. Even though he didn't feel anything it still scared the shit out of him. He screamed. He screamed for Merle to come back and help him, but he never came. He was gone for good.

He remembers waking to the sound of banging on a door and his daddy's angry voice yelling for him to shut the hell up before he came in there. He didn't dare make a sound. He didn't fall asleep again that night either. He had that feeling. That dreadful feeling that he's feeling now that made him feel like the dream actually meant something. It was the next day that he found out that Merle left. He went away to the Military. The only thing he left that was even remotely close to a goodbye was a yellow notepad stuck to his door saying, "Drafted to the Military, don't mess shit up," which he could only understand the gist of.

He doesn't really make the connection between the two things until later. His dream practically told him that his brother was going to leave him to the wolves… and that's pretty much what happened. But Daryl has always chalked that up to sheer coincidence. But the fact that that he's feeling the same way again sets him on edge a little.

He shudders when he thinks of what the hell the dream he had last night could possibly be telling him. He hopes like hell that what he's feeling is him just being paranoid, so he forces it out of his mind.

Daryl clears his throat and realizes he's been staring at his face in the mirror this whole time. He flexes his bruised and scabbed knuckles before arching his back. He relishes in the way it pops and stands upright, mashing his hair down with a sigh. He shakes his head, trying to chase away the bad memories of his depressing life. He was about to go eat something he hasn't tasted for _years. _He doesn't really feel all that hungry, but he's not going to let that stop him from enjoying this.

He inhales deeply and lets it out, really missing his smokes. He wonders where the fuck they are. He shakes his head again. He'll find them later. He rubs his hands together. _Time to go eat some French toast, _he thinks to himself, making himself perk up just the slightest.

When he walks into the kitchen he's greeted with the delicious scent of cinnamon and butter. He places a hand on his stomach when he feels it rumble. Diane turns around and gestures for him to take a seat at the table. He walks over and sits down and she places a plate full of French toast in front of him along with a fork.

"Whatcha want ta drink?" Diane asks him. "Milk or OJ?"

"OJ's fine," he mutters out before stuffing a large bite in his mouth. It seems to wake his brain up enough for him to realize just how hungry he is. He has half of his food eaten by the time Diane sets his juice beside his plate. She gapes at him for a second before shaking her head quickly and smiling widely. "I have more ready if you want," she offers and Daryl looks up at her with his mouth full, still chewing. He tries to say something to her, but can't get it out past the dense consistency of food. He swallows it down and tries again.

"This's really good." He points down to the almost empty plate with his fork. "Yeah, I think I'll have s'more."

She turns around and grabs a platter, brings it to the table and pushes more toast on his now empty plate, and fixes a plate of her own before sitting down a couple places away.

He continues eating and pauses half way through to take a drink from his orange juice and sees Diane grinning at him through the bottom of his glass. He pauses mid sip, looking at her, and then swallows and puts the glass back on the table. "Ya know. Ya enjoyin' this way too damn much," Daryl says taking another bite and gesturing from his plate to his mouth.

"I just really enjoy it when people enjoy my food," she says with a smile and starts eating her food. The corner of Daryl's lips curl up almost enough to be considered a smile.

Jon walks into the kitchen then. "That smells good," he says as he sits down and Diane gets up to fix him a plate. "I've been goin' over a blueprint for a place I've been thinking about makin' a bid on," he says when Diane puts his plate down in front of him.

"What place is it?" Daryl asks before gulping down more juice.

"It's for that new McDonald's bein' built," Jon replies, looks up at Daryl and frowning when he sees his face. Jon looks down at his plate as the guilt consumes him again. He looks back at Daryl and hesitates before saying, "I'm sorry fer that." He points at his own face gesturing towards his left cheek.

"Fer what?" Daryl asks, slightly confused.

"Last night.. ya got a little… hysterical, so I slapped you."

Daryl frowns, face reddening the slightest. "Oh… that explains it," he mumbles, more to himself than to anyone else.

Diane walks over and places a cup of coffee in front of Jon, then looks over at Daryl. "Would you like a cup of coffee, Daryl?" He nods and she fills a cup and places it in front of him before sitting down again.

"Y'all prob'ly need to call the Sheriff and tell him about that picture you have on the game camera," Diane says and the men nod their heads.

"Should give them that picture of the guy takin' the picture of me in bed, too," Daryl says darkly.

Jon smirks and snickers at him, and Daryl realizes what his statement could imply and narrows his eyes at him. "Oh, fuck off."

* * *

They're all sitting in the living room when Esther starts barking at the car that drives up and moments later they hear a knock on the door. Jon answers the door and lets Sheriff Rick and his deputy, Shane, in and Diane offers them both a cup of coffee. Shane looks around and scowls when he sees Daryl sitting there, as though he didn't know he was going to be here.

Esther continues to bark at them as they slip past her and go to the couch adjacent to the one Daryl and Diane are sitting on. Jon fusses at Esther to calm down and she does for the most part.

Shane reaches down to pet her and she jumps back and growls at him, making Daryl busts out laughing. Jon looks at him, surprised to be hearing him laugh for the first time in ages, and smiles to himself humorously. Even Rick seems like he's holding back a few chuckles.

Shane looks over and scowls at Daryl. "What are you laughing at, white trash!?" he exclaims and Daryl's smile instantly vanishes, replaced by a cold stare.

"Shane! Not now," Rick warns. Shane reluctantly shuts up, his jaw straining against spewing more insults.

While Jon wakes his laptop back up to get to the photo of the goon carrying the bag, Daryl loudly calls Esther over and pats the couch beside him. Her ears perk up and she runs over and jumps on the couch beside him with a happy smile. She lets out a content groan when she leans against him, and he wraps his arm around her and rubs her head. He looks over at Shane and sees him watching with contempt and he can't help the shit eating grin that spreads across his face.

He's never liked Shane. They went to school together, and even though Shane was a few grades under him it seemed like he was always there. He's never passed up an opportunity to make fun of a Dixon if he's given the ammunition to do so. He could easily be president of the Dixon hate club. He probably couldn't count all the times he's arrested Merle for things, even though he's sure that some of those he deserved, it seemed more like Shane was just trying to find reasons to lock him up. He's even tried that shit with Daryl a few times, but it never went through because his evidence was a load of bullshit that could never add up enough to make an actual case.

Diane walks in then with two cups of coffee. "I'm not sure if I heard right, but did I just hear Daryl Dixon laughing?" she asks with a smile.

"Yeah, Esther almost bit a chunk out a' Shane's ass here," Jon says, pointing at him with his thumb. Diane giggles and sits down on the couch beside Esther, and Shane growls and crosses his arms.

"Alright let's see what we came here for," Shane says impatiently.

Jon clicks on the photo and makes it full screen. "Well, there it is," he says distantly.

Everyone looks at the screen, especially Rick and Shane because they haven't seen it yet. Rick is the one that speaks. "What the..?"

"Give 'em that other picture," Daryl says to Jon, who then pulls it out of his pocket and glances down at it with a frown before handing it over. Daryl doesn't even spare a glance at it before handing it to Rick. Rick studies it, his expression serious.

"That actually happened yesterday mornin'…" Daryl says trailing off and Rick looks up at him.

"Was this with the photos in the cabin?" Rick asks and both Daryl and Jon nod. Rick frowns at the picture. "Tell me about it, did you see 'em?" he asks Daryl.

"Well," he sighs, "they was sneakin' around my house… I guess they woke me up when they took that picture. I got my .45 and tried to find 'em. When I did they threw a knife at me and got me in the shoulder. I shot them in the arm. They escaped out of Mer.… the spare bedroom window and ran inta the woods."

"They threw a knife at ya," Shane says skeptically. Daryl raises a defiant eyebrow and pulls the collar of his t-shirt down, peeling the bandage back and showing them his stitched up stab wound.

Shane scoffs. "It was prob'ly just one a' your drug buddies droppin' by ta say hi," Shane says. Daryl glares at him. "I wonder how yer ma would feel if she knew you were a no-good, dirty redneck drug addict just like ya old man… oh wait a minute, it don't matter… 'cause she's dead."

Daryl stands up quickly as well as Shane. "Man, you don't know shit!" he shouts, advancing towards Shane.

"She prob'ly wouldn't 'ave cared much anyway," Shane mutters, crosses his arms and looking to the side as though he's bored. "Is that why ya killed him? Couldn't stand to be around 'im because you was so much like 'im?" The room suddenly feels very tense.

"Man, shut the hell up!" Daryl begins shaking.

Shane looks back at Daryl and smirks. "Yeah, well what the hell ya gonna do if I don't?" Shane taunts as Daryl gets in his face. "Beat me up?" he says, smirking at the anger he's creating.

"Don't fuckin' tempt me," Daryl warns gruffly, knowing that it'd be a bad idea to punch a sheriff's deputy, but he's not going to just stand by and let this asshole bully him for his own damn amusement.

"It looks like someone already beat _you_ up." He shifts his gaze to all the afflicted areas on Daryl's face. "Pretty bad, huh?" Shane taunts lowly, and narrows his eyes. "I bet you had sum'm to do with that full out brawl at Chitlin' the other night. Hell you prob'ly started it."

Daryl reveals nothing from his face even though he feels the pounding of his heart quickening in his neck and temples. The hold on his breathing is more strained.

"No? Maybe something a little more domestic… ya brother?" Daryl doesn't respond. "Looks like he damn near beat the shit out a' you," he pauses, "yeah.." Shane nods, "I always knew you were a pussy-" Shane's interrupted by Daryl grabbing him and throwing him against the floor, making the whole house vibrate.

"I said, SHUT THE HELL UP!" Daryl roars quickly getting into position to punch Shane in the face while he lays there for the moment, caught off guard, but is stopped by a pair of strong arms that pull him backwards forcefully. All Daryl has in his mind to do is punch that stupid grin off of Shane's face, so he keeps struggling against the hold trying to break free. "LET ME GO!" he screams to the person holding him.

"NO!" comes Jon's voice. Then he hears Shane cackle.

"That's right, don't even have the guts to punch an officer in the face." He laughs and he stands up, "Come on hit me, I dare ya!"

"That's enough!" Rick shouts to Shane, then turns to Daryl. "And stop struggling, or I _will_ arrest you for assaulting an officer!" he warns and Daryl begrudgingly stops his fighting and violently shakes Jon's arms off of him with a huff.

"Now Shane, I brought you here with me to help me get more information on the case, not to harass the person with information, regardless of where they come from or _who_ they are. And if you can't act civilized and professional I'm gonna have to ask you to go wait in the car," he says tightly. Shane stares at him with a look of shock and a hint of hurt.

"Look… Rick, he attacked me-"

"Shut up! You fuckin' started it!" Daryl yells and Rick turns and gives him a warning look. Daryl scowls and backs off some before Rick turns back to shane.

"Just do as I say, or you're waiting in the car! Here me?!" he stresses. "_Here me_!?" he asks again when Shane just stares at him. He eventually nods his head, with a contemptuous look on his face, and crosses his arms. "Now everybody," Rick says to everyone in the room realizing that everyone had stood up during the confrontation ready to act in case things got out of hand, "it'd prob'ly'd be best if everyone took their seats again so we can get back on track."

Everyone takes their seats and Rick takes in a calming breath, "Alright… where were we?" He pauses for a moment, picking up the photo that fell to the floor and begins to study it.

"Alright," he looks over to Daryl, "ya still got the knife?"

Daryl hesitates, trying to get his _own_ brain back on track and remember what they were even talking about, "ye-yeah, it's still at my house."

"Is there anything specific you can remember about the suspect?" Rick asks.

"Naw… they was a little shorter 'an me, 5'9 maybe. Tha's about it. It was so damn dark you can tell more from the stupid picture 'an I could standin' right in front of 'em," Daryl says.

Rick looks back down to study it again. "So now we know there's at least two possible suspects. One of which we know broke into yer house fer... whatever reason," he trails off, "and also seems to have their eyes on you."

"Yeah..." Daryl mutters distantly. Both Rick and Shane stand up.

"I'd offer you help, but there's not much I can do in the way of protection other than tell you ta watch out fer yerself. And I really mean that," Rick says. "I can safely say I've never dealt with any a' this before."

Daryl scoffs at him. "Man, You don' even know."

They reach the door and Rick steps out, but Shane turns around and faces Daryl. "Nice pants by the way, they really suites ya. Too bad it does nothing to lessen yer overall shitty appearance."

Shane looks like he's about to say more, but Rick walks back through the door and grabs his shoulder. "Come on," he hisses and shoots Daryl a slightly apologetic look before dragging him out of the door and to their car. They could faintly hear them arguing with each other, predominantly Rick's scolding Shane.

"_Asshole_," Daryl growls as he tries to calm his rampantly beating heart and relax the tense muscles in his chest.

"I've never really cared much for that guy," Jon says as he shuts the front door.

"Yeah?" Daryl asks with a breathless sounding chuckle.

"I was talkin' to him one time. He had this air about him that just screamed that he thought that he was better than you, and that he could really care less about what yer sayin'."

Daryl hums. They sit in silence for a moment and Daryl stars off into space, rubbing his lip with his thumb, thinking about the shit that fell out of Shane's mouth.

"Hey, ya gettin' hungry?" Jon asks, and Daryl looks over quickly, startled.

Daryl shrugs. It's been long enough for him to know that he probably should eat something, even though he doesn't really have an appetite. "Sure."

Jon raises an eyebrow at him. "Alright. Well, we should all go down to the diner and get somethin'," he proposes.

"Sounds good."

Daryl walks back to the bedroom he's been using and looks around at the drawers. He hears footsteps go by. He looks up to see Diane walking past. "Hey Diane," she stops walking and pears in the doorway, "is there any clothes I can wear 'till my clothes is clean?" She nods her head.

"There should be some cargo pants in the closet that should fit you, and any of the shirts should fit. S'yer pick," she says before walking down the hallway.

Daryl goes to the closet and inspects his options. He picks up the dark grey cargo pants hanging and holds them out in front of him. They seem like they'll fit, so he throws them onto the bed and looks inside for a shirt. There is a blue and yellow plaid button up shirt, a green and black plaid button up shirt, a black button up shirt, and several other shirts. Daryl stops looking at those three and grabs the green and black shirt and throws that on the bed.

He closes the bedroom door and begins stripping himself of his clothes. He peeks at his stitching when he gets his shirt off to make sure that he didn't rip any stitching out and is relieved to see that they held tight. When he slips the pajama bottoms off he quickly gets dressed in the clean clothes.

They fit snug, more so than his own clothes, but not overly tight that it inhibits any movement from his day to day activities, so they'll have to do.

He goes over to the bedside table and runs his belt through the rings cinching it up. He looks back over at the table and grabs Lil' Cutie and puts her in one of his leg pockets and puts his phone in the upper front pocket. He puts Ida in the top drawer, concealing it from view, because he doesn't feel like taking her with him. He notices that his pack or lighter isn't anywhere to be seen, so he begins looking harder. He has the small dresser pulled away from the wall looking down in the crack when he hears a knock at the door.

"Come in," he grunts as he continues his search.

He hears the door open and then hears an amused voice, "Ya lookin' for these?"

Daryl turns around and sees Diane holding up his pack and lighter. He grunts and walks towards her taking them out of her grasp.

"I forgot to look in some of the pockets in yer clothes. Luckily, I always check before putting in the washer."

Daryl shakes one out of the pack and puts it between his lips. He flicks his lighter open and gets ready to light his cigarette.

"_Not_ in here!"

Daryl stops his hand holding the lighter halfway to the cigarette and flicks the lighter closed with a growl. "Right," he rips the cigarette out of his lips and puts it behind his ear, "I forgot…" he mutters.

She laughs at his irritation and Daryl scowls at her. "Ya almost ready to go?"

"Gotta put mah boots on." He turns and sits on the bed and begins slipping his boots on, but pauses, "I need socks.."

"Here," Diane says as a pair of socks hit him in the face.

He slips the socks on then shoves his feet into his boots. He puts his cigarette pack and lighter in their rightful places and stands up. "Now I'm ready."

"Alright let's go."


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: Here's the next chapter. Hope ya like it. Review and follow! :D**

Chapter 11

The ride to the diner is quiet, seeing as no one really has anything to talk about. All Daryl can think about is where this psychopathic asshole is and if they are watching him like they apparently had been doing. Thankfully it doesn't take long for them to get to there, and it surprisingly isn't crowded like he expected it to be at twelve on a Saturday, just the diner's usuals.

He's only gone in there on a handful of times, usually favoring not eating where people can stare at him in disgust, but since he's with his friends he can concentrate on them instead of ignoring the heated stares and occasionally glaring back at them.

They seat themselves quickly in a booth, Jon and Diane take one side and Daryl takes the other with his back to the door. Normally Daryl likes facing the door, but since he's with Jon he lets him instead. He figures that it's because of a protective instinct ingrained into him from fatherhood. And that suites Daryl just fine because he's quite certain that Jon's carrying too, and he's got a level head on him, so if things go bad he'd be able to take care of it wisely instead of make things worse.

They just begin looking at the menus that were already placed on the table when their waitress arrives, but Daryl is too concentrated on reading the items to notice her arrival.

"What would you all like to drink?" she asks and Daryl looks up from his menu. "Oh, hey Daryl. How are you doin'?" she says cheerfully and Daryl realizes that Satin is the one waiting their table. He had completely forgotten that she said she works here. He shifts a little in his seat.

"Uh… hey. I'm… fine." Daryl awkwardly waves a hand at her as Jon and Diane watch the small interaction between the two with arched brows.

"We'll have water," Jon says gesturing towards himself and Diane, getting down to business. Satin writes it down and looks to Daryl with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll uh.. have coke." She smiles at him and writes it down.

"Alllright. I'll be back in a bit to let you guys figure out what you want to order." She turns to leave and winks at Daryl before leaving to get back to work making Daryl shift in his seat a bit.

"Well that was weird," Diane says out of the corner of her mouth.

"Yeah, well you don't keep seeing her," Daryl mutters.

"Why have I never seen her before…?" Jon raises his hands up in question.

"Eh… I think she jus' rolled inta town. She picked me up a few days ago, walkin' on the side of the road after…" Daryl stops talking when he sees Satin walking back to their table with their drinks. He shifts uncomfortably.

Satin places the drinks down in front of their owners. "You guys ready to order yet?"

They all turn and look at one another. Daryl shrugs his shoulders figuring he'll just get whatever he usually gets at a restaurant, if it serves it. Jon turns to Satin and nods his head. "Yeah, we are. I'll have the cheeseburger plate." Satin writes it down and looks at Diane.

"I'll have the chili cheese fries," Diane adds and Satin looks over to Daryl.

"And what we'll you be having?" she asks him.

"Cheeseburger plate," he mutters.

She looks back down at her notepad and writes the order down and looks back up, "Alright, shouldn't be too long before everything's ready," then she smiles at Daryl again before walking back to the kitchen.

They all watch her leave and Daryl turns to see Diane looking like she has a foul taste in her mouth.

"I don't trust her," Diane says, breaking the silence, "She seems too perfect…. too perfect to be real."

"I think yer just jealous," Jon says to Diane. She scoffs.

"I'm not jealous, she just seems… fake to me. And she kept starin' at Daryl. I mean what the hell was that about?" Diane asks raising her hands, palm up.

"I don' know maybe they got a secret thing goin' on." Jon shrugs and Daryl scrunches up his face with his mouth curving downward, shaking his head, but they don't pay him any attention.

"I don't think so. I mean did you not see how Daryl-" Diane is interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing and they both look over, finally noticing Daryl's rather uncomfortable disposition.

"Yeah, I'd appreciate it… if ya'd wait for me ta leave before ya start talkin' like I ain't here."

They both look slightly sheepish before they sit in a slightly awkward silence sipping their drinks and looking at their phones to pass the time.

"What were ya sayin' before that girl came by and gave us our drinks?" Jon asks, looking up at Daryl.

Daryl thinks for a few seconds before shrugging, "I don' remember."

"She picked you up…" Diane waves a hand.

"Oh yeah…" Daryl traces his bottom lip with his left thumb, "she picked me up after I went huntin' and was walkin' back to my truck on the side of the road. I let 'er drive me back to my truck because she wouldn't leave me the hell alone. I honestly believe she would've folla'd me all the way back ta my damn truck in her car." Daryl pauses to take a sip from his coke and scratch the scruff on his chin, "I saw her again a couple a days ago at the grocery store… kept tryin' to talk to me when all I wanted was get the shit I needed and go home." He purposely leaves out the part where she asked him out, not feeling up to talk about that particular incident.

"Then the same day.." he briefly points at Jon, "after that bar fight, I was headed home and I almost fuckin' ran inta her car parked in the middle of the God damn road. He shakes his head. "I get out tryin to find 'er and she comes runnin' out of the fuckin' woods. She's in there fuckin' walkin' around without a light. Never did tell me what she was doin'.

"Then she says her car stopped runnin' and asks me to look at it." Daryl alternatively shifts his gaze between Diane and Jon's. "There wasn't a damn thang wrong with it… So I don't know what her fuckin' deal is," Daryl finishes, shrugging and waving his hands in the air.

Diane purses her lips and mutters to the air, "hmm, I still don't like her…"

"I don't know… seems like she likes ya pretty good," Jon states, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, ya think?" Daryl asks slightly sarcastic and Jon makes a face at him.

"She's a good lookin' gal why don't ya ask her out?" Jon asks and Diane crosses her arm and rolls her eyes, looking at the wall beside her.

Daryl shifts uncomfortably, thinking about the question he's asked himself on a few occasions and gives the only answer that he seemed to come up with every time, "I.. I don' know…. She makes me feel weird." Jon raises an eyebrow in question and Daryl swallows, suddenly feeling like he's taking some kind of test, "… she seems kind a'… off, ya know?" He looks at Jon who's making an unreadable face, "I don't know. Jus'.. nevermind," Daryl dismisses quickly, hoping that they will drop the subject. Daryl quickly looks down and busies himself with wadding up his straw wrapper into a small ball.

"Naw I getcha... I do," Jon says, and Daryl quickly looks over at him and breathes a sigh of relief knowing that he at least made a little bit of since. Jon looks over to where she would be standing if she wasn't in the kitchen, "I see it. Jus' wanted to hear yer reasonin'."

"Good," Daryl mutters and flicks the wrapper from his fingers, shooting it across the diner. "I jus' don't get why she'd be so inta me."

"Daryl…" Diane begins but gets cut off by Satin bringing them their food and begins setting down their plates. Daryl watches as she begins to set his plate down in front of him when it's about two inches from the table he hears a soft grunt and sees her arm does a convulsive type twitch before her hand releases its grip on the plate causing it to clatter loudly to the table, making him to flinch at the sudden noise. He looks up at her quickly and notices that she has a square bandage on the arm she was just using.

"Sorry," she says sheepishly, glancing quickly at Daryl with her feline eyes as she uses her other arm to set the rest of the plates in front of Jon and Diane. She sets Diane's plate down and reaches over to grab one of the salt and pepper shakers and retracts her hand a little too widely, knocking Diane's water over into her lap. Daryl gasps. _What the hell is this shit? _

…..

"Shit!" Diane says as she quickly stands up as much as the table would let her and brushes in vain at the water seeping into her clothes.

"Shit! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Here… let me help you," she says as she grabs a wad of napkins out of the holder.

Diane quickly brushes her off. "It's fine. I got it," she says curtly as she and Jon get up and stand beside the dripping bench. "At least it's just water," she mutters to herself.

"Here just-" Satin makes a grab for her shirt with the napkins in hand.

"It's fine!" She moves away from Satin. "I'll be in the bathroom," she says to Jon and Daryl.

Jon watches Diane walk to the bathroom and then he turns to Satin and watches her watching Diane. Her face portrayed that she had made an honest mistake and she's truly sorry for it, but for a split second her eyes conveyed something much different, something akin to envy. Jon narrows his eyes at her and Satin looks in his direction, her face completely slipping back into innocence, no evidence that would ever suggest that she could be putting up any kind of facade. _Daryl's gonna have to watch out for this girl._

"I really am sorry about that. Let me go get a towel." And then she quickly walks off to the kitchen.

He looks over to Daryl, who has an unreadable look on his face, staring off into space. He sits down beside Daryl on his bench.

"That was fun," Jon jokes. He looks over at Daryl who's still looking at the empty bench across from them, his shoulders slumped. Jon bumps his shoulder lightly getting his attention. "Hey, ya alright?"

Daryl lets out a grunt as his head snaps over to Jon's; he shakes his head slightly as though to clear his head. "What?"

"Ya alright?" Jon asks again. Daryl nods his head quickly, leaning forward and aligning the French fries that fell off of his plate into a square on the table, avoiding Jon's inquisitive stare. Jon is not at all convinced that he's "alright".

He's about to say something when Satin comes back with a towel and wipes the water out off of the bench and table. She picks up the empty cup and looks up at Jon and Daryl. She reaches out for Daryl's hand and squeezes it. "I really am sorry."

Daryl looks at her wild-eyed, tensing up immediately. He quickly rips his hand out of her grasp, as though her touch burnt his skin, and slides it off the table onto his lap with his other hand. He avoids all eye contact and just stares at his hands in his lap.

"I'll just get another glass of water. I'll be back." She walks away with the stuff leaving Jon and Daryl to sit in silence. She returns shortly with the glass and places it in Diane's vacant seat. She glances at Daryl, who's still looking at his lap, with a look that Jon doesn't know the meaning of before she walks off. Daryl frowns and picks up his burger and stares at it for a moment, he takes a tentative bite and sets it back down on the plate.

"I'm not really that hungry anymore," Daryl says leaning back with a sigh. Jon looks at him and takes a bite from his own burger.

"That's understandable."

Diane comes back and looks down at the now dry bench before sitting in it. She looks up at the two men sitting across from her, one chewing on his thumb nail sitting back and not eating while the other is concentrating on eating his food.

"Y'all look excited," she remarks, making them look up at her.

"Yeah, we're havin' a fuckin' party," Daryl mutters quietly, waving his hand in the air slightly, and Diane begins to eat her food.

"Ya know the more I think about it…. the more I think that _bitch_ did it on purpose," she states. Jon nods minutely and Daryl sighs.

"What's wrong Daryl?" she asks softly and he looks at her then diverts his eyes to his lap. He hums out an 'I dunno.' He looks guilty, but she can't think of any reason why he should be. They continue eating for a while and Diane sees Daryl takes unenthusiastic bites of his burger and continually cast glances at her.

"Sorry…"

Jon and Diane look up at the low apology.

"What the hell for?" Diane asks.

Daryl rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably, quirking his lip up uncertainly, "I feel like if I weren't here then…" he pauses and sighs, rubbing his chin, "…it's my fault."

Diane stars at him for a moment processing his words. "Daryl… it's not yer fault. Yer not responsible for what that woman does. You can't be."

Daryl looks at her and nods slightly, but even if he does feels a little better about what happened he still doesn't have an appetite.

"…Maybe."

…

It's after supper that Daryl starts feeling antsy. Worst of all he's feeling like he's bothering Jon and Diane with his constant presence. He doesn't want them to get tired of him, being around them all of the time. Plus he doesn't want a repeat of last night. He doesn't know if his pride can handle them seeing him like that again. Hopefully it won't happen again.

Diane had laid out his clothes on the bed he slept on a while ago, so he switches into his own clothes and grabs all of his belongings and puts them in his pockets. He peeks out the door looking for the two and doesn't see anyone. He doesn't know why he feels the need to sneak out without them knowing, but he does, and he is doing it.

He makes it all the way to the front door before he hears a voice. Diane's voice.

"Where ya goin?"

Daryl freezes facing the door, "back to mah house."

"_Tonight_?" Diane asks. Daryl turns around to face her.

"Yeah. Figured I've been here long enough. Ya'll prob'ly tired of my ass hangin' around fer so long, usin' up all ya shit. Figured it'd be a good idea to head home," Daryl reasons. Diane sighs.

"It's not a problem, really Daryl. It's nice havin' someone else here besides Jon and me, ever since the kids left for college. So, please at least jus'… stay another night," she pleads, cupping one of Daryl's hands with both of hers. Daryl notices a sense of urgency in her eyes and he knows that she wouldn't looks so desperate if that was really the reason she wanted him to stay.

Daryl sighs and gently pulls his hand free. "What's the _real_ reason ya want me ta stay?" he asks in his gravelly voice.

Both of Diane's hands fall to her side limply, swinging before raising her hands up. "Is it so hard to believe that people actually like having you around?"

Daryl doesn't say anything. She isn't denying that that wasn't the real reason.

Diane's shoulders slouch for a second and she looks down, then back up. "I'm scared, Daryl." Daryl tenses a little when he sees her eyes get glossy with unshed tears. "Whoever this asshole is… they were in yer house, Daryl. They were right. There. _Beside. _ You. Does that not freak you out? Because it sure as hell freaks me out." Her voice begins to quaver just the slightest. "I'm scared that Jon and me are gonna wake up, expecting to be able to see you again one day and find out that yer _gone… _or _dead_," she adds and Daryl swallows, his resolve wavering, "and it's not just me… even though Jon won't say it, he's just as worried.

"Apart from Jon and the kids, yer my only friend here… and I care about you. It would tear me apart havin' somthin' happen to you, Jon too. So please, stay at least fer tonight." She ends placing her hand lightly on his bicep.

Daryl sighs and looks up at the ceiling. It's not like he hasn't thought the same things already because he _has_, almost all the time. This whole damn situation makes him jumpy as shit. And to be perfectly honest, he's not really looking forward to going home and being alone, he just feels like some useless asshole being a drain on resources and a burden. That's one of the reasons he kicked Merle out of his house, he doesn't want to turn around and do that to someone else.

He looks back at Diane and nods his head.

"Good," Diane sighs out of relief.

…..

Diane wakes up early that morning. It's still dark in the room so she knows it's still really early. She's always had problems going to sleep and actually staying asleep, mostly on account of her restless leg syndrome, and right now it was flaring up.

She gets up to get herself a glass of water, feeling like her mouth is filled with cotton. As she walks by the room Daryl's sleeping in she peeks in, checking in on him. When her eyes adjust to the darkness in the room she sees that the bed is empty. She walks in the room to the other side of the bed not visible from the door, to make sure that he didn't fall out of the bed or something.

The room is empty. She begins to worry that maybe he decided to bail while everyone one is asleep. He's not exactly the most predictable person she's ever met and he continues to constantly surprise her. She leaves the room in a hurry looking around her as she goes. She walks the kitchen discovering that it's empty. She walks to the living room next and stops in the doorway, sighing with relief.

There sitting on the couch is Daryl hunched forward with his face in his hands. He quickly glances up at the doorway when he hears her sigh, looking startled before he shoves his face back in his hands, huffing out air.

Concern spreads through her when she sees him there, slightly shaking. Her mind goes back to the previous night. _Could he have had another nightmare?_

She approaches him cautiously and gently sits down on the couch beside him, making sure to leave him enough space to not make him feel claustrophobic.

She looks at him, but he just keeps his face in his hands.

"Daryl," she says softly, "ya alright?" She leans towards him just a fraction of an inch, waiting for some kind of response.

He doesn't verbally respond, but after a few seconds pass she sees just the subtlest movement of his head shaking in his hands. If she wouldn't have been watching she would have missed it. She starts to feel unsure about how to approach him about what's bothering him. So she asks the most obvious of questions.

"Ya wanna talk about it?" she asks softly.

She sees his shoulders stiffen just the slightest and she begins to think that he was going to pretend that he didn't hear her after the silence stretches on to minutes. She's surprised when he vigorously rubs his face with his hands with a frustrated growl and drops his hands from his face and breathes out a reply.

"No."

He doesn't say anything else and Diane's mind reels. She's stumped on what she could say to help distract him from whatever demons that are inside his head. She can't even imagine the kind of things that could be going across his mind. If it has anything to do with his childhood, which she has a feeling that it probably does, she still wouldn't know what to say. But she knows one thing and its how much she hates the man who caused it and put the haunted and self hatred look in his eyes. And she's most certain that it was his dad that did most of the damage, mentally and physically. He's never outright said it, but she able to figure it up mainly from just putting two and two together. And it makes her irate that someone would do such a thing to their child, their own flesh and blood. She won't ever know why anyone would ever want to.

She looks back at Daryl and sees his fingers fidgeting with his pack of cigarettes and realizes what he wants to do.

"You can go out on the porch and smoke, if you want…"

Daryl looks over at the closed door with a tight frown, "…yeah, I kinda figured."

He looks like he's have a mental battle about something, of what she isn't sure. But whatever it is, his need for nicotine wins out.

He gets up from the couch and goes out the door with his pack, leaving the wooden door open behind him and letting the screen door fall closed, so she's still able to see him. He glances around the yard before he walks over to the top step and sits down, leaving only his head visible through the screen door.

He looks uncomfortably tense sitting out there and she doesn't know if it's because he might be cold or because of a sudden jumpiness he seems to have developed. She comes to a quick decision and gets up deciding to join him, whether her company would be welcome or not.

Daryl looks back at her when she opens the screen door and blows out the smoke from his mouth. She walks over to the step he's sitting on and sits down beside him.

"Don't care if I give ya company do ya?" she asks.

Daryl looks back out across the yard off into the woods and shrugs his shoulders. "Not my house."

Diane huffs a laugh and looks up at the sky. It's a clear night out and she can see the stars clearly. She gets mesmerized by how tiny it makes her feel when she looks at them. Her mind wanders to different things, most of them about things that have recently happened.

She starts thinking about how much of an asshole Shane was to Daryl and remembers what he said about Daryl's dad. And despite her knowing it's not really any of her business it spikes her curiosity. Daryl doesn't talk about his dad much. He doesn't talk about either of his parents really. Whenever the subject was ever brought up, by either her or Jon, he's only ever given them short and simple answers, nothing containing too much detail, or hardly any at all. She's known that his dad died, but she's never known how exactly. He's never said and she's never felt the need to ask. That particular detail didn't ever seem all that relevant… at least not until now. She doesn't think Shane's words are that credible because she's pretty sure he was just trying to get under his skin. He seems like the kind of person to twist things around into meaning something else entirely. The only thing she can do is ask Daryl herself. Asking someone else would just feel wrong and make her feel like she's betraying his trust.

"What did Shane mean when he said you killed yer dad?" she blurts out without much thought about how Daryl will react and cringes when Daryl tenses even further.

He flicks ashes off of his cigarette angrily. "I _didn't_. Shane's just bein' an asshole," he spits out.

Diane feels like slapping herself in the face. She knows Daryl is a private person, and if that's not something he wants to talk about just blurting out her question with no thought into how she words it isn't the best way to go about it. But then again, he hasn't told her to fuck off yet, so she cautiously keeps going. "Why… would he say that?"

"We ain't never exactly seen eye to eye," he grumbles. "I wouldn't doubt he really does believe I killed him, considering his "high" opinion a' me. But I _didn't_." He looks down at the hand holding his cigarette resting on his knee. "Not on purpose."

Diane's eyes widen just a fraction. "What happened?"

She sees him look over at her scrutinizing her face with his sharp gaze and she concentrates hard on not to squirming under the intense stare.

"Ya don't think any less a' me?" he asks, almost sounding shocked. Diane scoffs.

"Why should I? I would have killed him too, even knowin' what little bit he's done," she empathizes and sees Daryl grimace and his frown deepen and decides maybe she should stop talking.

"It wasn' like that…" Daryl mutters and goes to take a puff of his cigarette only to find it had burned down to the filter. He growls and throws it in the dirt and takes out another one.

"You can tell me, Daryl. I'm not gonna think any less of ya." She gives him a reassuring smile and sees his Adam's apple bob in the yellow porch light. He's staring off into the woods again, but he has a somber look to his eyes that she wish she could erase.

"Might as well tell ya the whole damn story..." He takes a puff of his cigarette and blows the smoke out of his nose. "I was nineteen or so. I was still livin' under my daddy's wing. Anyway, I get this call from the bar owner tellin' me to come pick my old man up before he called the cops on him. And like the dedicated son I was, I drive my truck down to the bar ta get 'im. And of course when I get there, it's past closing time and he's piss ass drunk. I could barely drag his ass to the truck while the whole time he's talkin' shit. Shit I'm not willin' ta repeat." He pauses to puff on his cigarette to keep it from going out. "An' the shit didn't stop fallin' out his mouth neither.

"We was about halfway home when he starts declarin' that I drive like a pussy and his stupid ass grabs the steerin' wheel and yanks it towards 'im. I try and yank the truck's wheels back straight, but it was too late. The next thing I know is I the truck's barreling off the side of the road and suddenly up is down… and down is up. Then I can feel my face crashing through the windshield and I'm flying through the air. I catch a glimpse of my dad flying out beside me and then the truck rollin' down. I don't know how long I laid there, but when I opened my eyes again, I couldn't see out my left. But I used my right to look for my dad…" Daryl stops talking, his slightly trembling hands suddenly going to his face, "when the truck rolled over beside me…. it rolled right on top of 'im." He pauses again. "You couldn't really recognize him. His face was flattened to a pancake….." his voice shakes unsteadily.

"I threw up then. I don't know if it was from the fact that half of my face was smashed in or because of the fact that I could see his guts busted out all around…" Daryl looks away quickly unable to keep his composure if he keeps talking. Diane rubs his shaking shoulder, but stops when he leans away slightly.

"It wasn't your fault, Daryl," she says softly. Daryl looks at her with glistening eyes that tells her that he doesn't fully believe her, and then averts his eyes and blankly stares at his right hand holding the cigarette as his left finds his mouth.

"I went to the hospital… and he went to the morgue," he says quietly, and then laughs bitterly. "Ya know? Ya'd think I'd be glad that bastard was dead…" he shakes his head with a twisted frown, "but I'm _not_." He sniffs and his face contorts suddenly before relaxing and then contorting again, "I guess I jus'… Even though he was a bastard I jus'…. I thought maybe… eventually…" He sniffs loudly and quickly wipes his eyes before he looks at her.

"I don't know why I'm tellin' you this shit…" he says, looking very dejected and frustrated at the same time.

"No. It's okay. Maybe you tellin' me will make you feel better because you need to tell _someone_."

He looks down. "I feel like such a pussy." He huffs out a laugh and then goes quiet. She looks over and sees several emotions flash across his face.

"You can tell me, I'm not gonna make fun of ya. Who am I gonna tell? Jon?"

Daryl frowns at her and mutters, "Ya got a point…"

He looks up at the moon and heaves a sigh, "I guess I thought he would…." He growls, from irritation or disgust she can't really tell. She almost misses what he says next because he mumbles it so quietly. "Maybe he would… love me."

Diane feels her chest get tight. _Love?_ Diane suddenly feels like crying. He's never known how it is to have a parent love him. He's never had the fortune of having _anyone_ love him. Diane's been fortunate to have both loving parents and have several goods friends throughout her life. And here Daryl is having never known what it's like to have any of that. It's not too surprising he was as jaded as he was when they first met. It makes her feel like such an asshole in comparison. But she knows he's not looking for pity, she's learned that plenty over the years, so she puts on her best poker face and gives the most sincere of responses from her heart and not out of sympathy.

"If it makes you feel any better, Daryl…" She waits for him to look at her; his face is set firmly in a frown. "_I_ love you." She places a hand over her heart.

Daryl's eyes widen and it looks like he might even be holding his breath. She quickly adds more so he doesn't get any wrong ideas.

"Yer one of the best friends I've ever had and I'm glad I'm friends with you. I couldn't imagine not having you as one. I wouldn't want to. Yer a good man, Daryl. Don't _ever_ let anyone tell you different." She smiles and sees the harsh lines in his face relax just the slightest, even though the air still remains slightly awkward around them. But she takes it as a good sign that he hasn't run for the hills yet.

They stay quiet for a long time she listens to the sound of the forest. She can hear the coyotes off in the distance and ignores the slight chill that the sound causes to run down her spine. She can tell that Daryl's mulling something over in his head, but she doesn't bother him. She'd give him his peace.

Suddenly she feels a rough hand gently squeeze her shoulder. She looks over and sees the openly touched expression on his face

"You too," he rasps shyly. Diane smiles widely and can't control herself from the side hug that she gives him. It doesn't last long, only for a couple of seconds. He doesn't hug back, but he also doesn't tense up. But for him that's almost just as good and she's content with it.

They sit in silence and Daryl smokes up most of his pack; Diane thinks over the things he says, adding all the small pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of what she already knows about him, and remembers something that raises another question.

"Can you see out of yer left eye?"

Daryl looks at her quickly, caught off guard for a second.

"Wha'… oh." He touches his left eye socket. "mmm… s'not as good as before. I see little speckles sometimes, but yeah… I can see through it." Diane nods at him.

"Tha's why I got a metal eyesocket. I smashed my own in…" Daryl looks up at the sky and scratches his arm.

They're interrupted by the sound of a gunshot echoing across the woods. Daryl stiffens and sits up straighter. She looks at him and sees the different emotions flit across his face.

"That was probably just Jack. Asshole likes to start hunting before it gets light…." She watches as Daryl mauls it over, but he doesn't look entirely convinced.

"Maybe…" he says distractedly, staring off into the woods. "What time is it?"

Diane looks up as well, "I don't know. Maybe we should get back inside."

Daryl finishes his cigarette, "prob'ly," and then he stands up.

"You leavin' in the mornin' er… later?" she asks.

"Yeah… got to eventually."


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: So this chapter is shorter than they've been being and not a whole lot happens in it, and I feel like by the ending ya'll are gonna to be like WTF? So I want to know what ya'll think. Don't forget to review and follow. ^_^**

**And I know ya'll are out there reading the story. Come on now don't be shy, I don't bite. I appreciate all reviews, even if it's just a couple of words. **_**Short and sweet. **_**You can even just be a guest, I'm not that anal when it comes to that kind of thing. **

**I just like knowing that people are actually reading my story and liking it. It does well for a person's esteem.**

**Anyway, here's more Daryl time…**

Chapter 12

Daryl is anxious to get home. He hasn't been home in a couple of days and the stalker psychopath is still running around. No telling if his house is even standing anymore considering it was him and Jon that ruined their secret "hideout". What if somehow they knew it was _him _that found the place. He doesn't reckon that would be a very good situation.

He barely pays attention to the background as he drives by in his truck. And his mind is so thick with though that he pays no mind to any of the music playing to the radio.

"Fuckin' _SHIT_!"

His blood begins to boil when he sees Tommy's Jeep parked beside his house when he pulls into the driveway. If that asshole is in his house right now he feels that he has every right to shoot that fucker in his ass.

He gets out of his truck, quickly slamming the door. It takes everything ounce of his control, which he's slowly losing, to keep himself from angrily sprinting to the door. He opens the front door finding it not so surprisingly unlocked.

When he steps inside he becomes absolutely livid. He can actually feel the blood vessels in his head constricting, bringing on massive headache. His whole house looks like a fuckin' tornado hit it. The contents to any cabinet and drawer were dumped on the floor along with the drawers themselves. The fridge… well… that had the same treatment, contents, everything, just dumped on the floor.

He quickly moves his glare to the living room and sees the stuffing out of everything possible ripped out, including his chair, completely ruined. That's not even half of the damage.

He feels a pain on his scalp and realizes that he's pulling his hair out of frustration, but he doesn't let up. A pressure within his chest builds and he realizes it's from the extreme effort of him trying to keep from screaming, and he's losing badly because the scream escapes his throat and it almost scares _him_.

"aaAAAAAAAA**AAAHHHH!** TOM_MYYY_!" Daryl pauses, heavily puffing out air as he begins hastily stomping towards the hallway, "Imma fuckin' _kill_ yo ass!"

He hears a crash come from his room and he stops his current path and turns to quickly march to his room. He throws the door open, quickly holding up his forearm to stop the recoil of it bouncing back. He realizes he's growling as he sees the two figures, but does nothing to stop it because who he sees, in the mess they've created, only makes him more irate.

"_MERLE_?! What the _FUCK_ do you think ya doin'?!" Daryl approaches him quickly, vaguely aware of a frightened looking Tommy standing over in the corner of the room by his bed.

"Where is it?" Merle asks angrily when Daryl stands in his face.

"Where is _what_?" he growls out.

"You know what I'm fuckin' talkin about! The _powder_! The _coke_! Where'da fuckin' hide it, _baby brother_!?" He grits through his face.

And Daryl begins laughing, not a normal sounding laugh, but the laugh of someone who's lost one too many marbles. He can  
feel the tears beginning to fall from the outer corners of his eyes. Merle leans back a little uncertain of his brother's behavior.

Daryl stops laughing and scowls at Merle with a disturbingly cold expression, "You don't fuckin' know me _at all_ do you? I didn't fuckin' hide it… I fuckin got _rid_ of it!"

Merle's nostril's flare, "you WHAT!?"

"You heard me, Merle!" Daryl quips quickly.

"D'you know how much fuckin' money that shit was!?"

"Of Course I do! It was _MY_ FUCKIN' MONEY!" He glances around his room quickly waving a furious hand. "Do you know how much fuckin' money it's gonna be to replace all the shit YOU FUCKIN' DESTROYED!?" he screams with his shaking palms facing up, fingers curled tensely towards his palm.

Merle lunges for Daryl, but Daryl slides out of the way and pushes Merle's back making him hit the wall, cracking it. "Yer fuckin' lucky I don't sue ya ass!"

"Boy! Ya must've gone soft in the head. Ya forget who you's talkin' to!" Merle quickly advances and grabs Daryl's arm firmly, but Daryl doesn't feel it because he's completely overcome with his anger.

"You can't just attack ole Merle and expect ya to just get away wit' it scot free." As Merle says it Daryl just reacts without thinking and slaps Merle in the side of the head. The unprepared Merle goes crashing to the ground yanking Daryl to the floor with him from his furiously tight grip. Daryl lands on his side beside Merle and quickly regains his baring, faster than Merle at least.

He whacks his fist into Merle's stomach making him loosen his grip enough for Daryl to rip his arm from away and repeatedly punches Merle in the face. Daryl's to the point that he doesn't care if he breaks every single fuckin' knuckle in his fist, all he can see is every time is Merle's fucking him over and over time again. He can feel Merle's nose crunch under his knuckles, and sputters out a strangled laugh. He doesn't stop. Why should he? Merle never seems to stop and think about Daryl. He thinks he even feels the corners of his mouth curl up into an evil smile at the satisfying amount of blood on his face.

Merle eventually whacks the side of his fist into Daryl's head making him roll over into the floor, but Daryl quickly gets to his feet before Merle can get a good grip to keep him on the floor. Unfortunately, he _does _have a good grip on Daryl's shirt and when he stands up the shirt tears at the seams and rips right off of him, leaving Daryl standing there completely shirtless, heaving with both anger and exertion.

Daryl sees Merle's face pale, underneath the blood pouring spatters, and his eyes widen. Daryl looks down and realizes with horror what had just happen. He mutters several curse words as he looks around his trashed bedroom and locates a pile of shirts lying by the drawer that use to hold them. He quickly strides over to them.

"I-I didn't know," Merle pleas and Daryl bitterly scoffs as he hastily throws on grey t-shirt.

"Yeah.. you did." Daryl turns to glare at him, still completely furious, "He did it to you too, so don't give me that shit!" He throws an angry arm in the air.

"Yeah?! Well, I _had to_ leave. I woulda killed 'em otherwise!"

Daryl huffs a short laugh.

"Well _whoopty fuckin' do_! That worked out perfectly for me, _right_?!" Daryl screams into the room. "Leave and go have fuckin' parties, then get fuckin' kicked out of the military 'cause of it, but still don't show up until years after he's dead!? And you say you care." Daryl doesn't even try to control his trembling, he wouldn't be able to anyway.

Merle stays quiet for a few grueling seconds before he blurts out, "At least _I_ didn't kill him."

The pressure inside Daryl's chest wells up again and it feels like his body almost isn't capable of containing _this_ much rage. He growls low in his chest and draws Ida from the holster tucked into his waistband, and points it at Merle, gun slightly shaking in his hand from anger. He shakily and quietly speaks, "Get out a' my house, Merle."

Merle just stares at him, his jaw set, but Daryl keeps his pistol steady.

"I said GET OUT! I don't want you here no more!" Daryl yells, his voice straining.

Merle's face changes to a look of sadness and defeat before he reluctantly steps outside the room into the hallway.

Daryl points his pistol at Tommy and almost laughs at the man's completely freaked out expression, but he doesn't. He sneers at Tommy, standing in the corner of the room like a coward.

"You too, cock sucker." Tommy's eyes widen just a fraction before he scurries out of the room to catch up with Merle.

Daryl follows them as they walk to the door, gun still trained on their backs as they reach the door quickly. Merle turns around and opens his mouth to say something, but Daryl cuts him off.

"NO! You had ja fuckin' chance." Merle frowns. Daryl opens the door and gestures for them to leave with his gun.

After they walk through the door Daryl speaks again, "This is the last time Merle. Ya do sum'm like this again, I'm callin' the cops! _Get your shit together_!" And then he slams the door.

Daryl turns around and faces the waste land that his house has been turned into and feels his headache come on stronger and begins to feel a weird tingling in his face. He groans pressing his free hand into his temple; he barely notices the sound of Tommy's jeep drive away.

Alarm begins to swirl in his gut when he suddenly loses the feeling in his right arm and involuntarily drops his gun on the floor. It feels like the floor begins dipping down in unnatural angles and he stumbles, trying to regain his balance. He limps over to the closest source of furniture, his ruined couch, and collapses onto it, moaning. He lays there and tries to collect himself.

_This shit ain't right..._

Out of reflex he goes to raise his right hand to rub his face and realizes with a start that he can't move it; his arm is completely numb. He hears a strangled whimper and after a moment realizes with complete humiliation that it was him. He lies there trying to figure out what he should do. He fumbles awkwardly into his right pocket with his left hand, grunting in the process, and pulls out his phone. He silently thanks who ever designed the pants he's wearing that they decided to make the pockets not as deep as in his other pants.

He stares at the phone loosely grasped in his hand and begins dialing Jon's number. He knows that Jon's at home right now and his house is closer to Daryl's than the hospital, so he's pretty sure Jon could get him to the ER faster than it would even take an ambulance to arrive at his house.

He anxiously listens to the dull ringing as he waits for him to pick up.

….

Jon's sitting in his chair watching the football game on TV when his phone rings. He looks at the caller ID wondering who's trying to reach him. He feels a wave of apprehension hit him when he sees Daryl's name on the screen. Daryl's not usually one for calling to chat; it's always something of some sort of significance. He quickly taps the answer button and puts the phone to his ear

"Hello?"

The line is silent for a couple of seconds before he hears Daryl's voice. "I nee' hellp…"

His voice doesn't sound right to him, and the fact that _Daryl_ is asking for help is enough to call for concern, "What do you need help with?" he asks quickly.

"I'm..." He hears him inhale, "'av'n a perob'm… I thin'… I nee' a ride ta th'ER."

Jon's eyes widen. He had to struggle to really understand what he was saying and thinks back over what his words sounded most like, but feels like he got the important parts, "Alright, I'll be there in a minute. Just hang on."

"Ahrigh'." And then Daryl hangs up. Jon gets up quickly to hurry out the door and grabs his truck keys.

"Where ya goin'?" Diane asks from the doorway wearing her sleeping clothes. Jon huffs with impatience.

"Daryl asked me to take him to the ER," he explains quickly and her eyes widen as she gasps. "I have to go; I don't have time to wait for you to get dressed." And then he walks out the door to get in his truck, not even giving Diane anytime to respond.

He ignores the speed limit and drives quickly down the road to Daryl's house. He arrives shortly and gets out of his truck barely staying long enough to close his truck door. He doesn't bother knocking. The way Daryl sounded on the phone made him feel like he probably isn't in a state to be up and walking around.

He steps inside and is completely caught off guard by the disaster he's greeted with, "Well… shit."

He glances down at black object on the floor and notices Daryl's gun lying about foot from his feet. Before he has time to come to any rash conclusions to why it's lying there movement on the destroyed couch catches his attention, and he sees Daryl awkwardly looking at him over his left shoulder.

"What the hell happened?!" He hurries over to Daryl's form on the couch, who tries to sits himself up, only to have his arm buckle underneath him and fall back on the couch. Jon's stretches out a hand to him which Daryl begrudgingly accepts with his left, and Jon pulls him up into a sitting position. Jon doesn't comment about Daryl's bleeding knuckles and discretely wipes the blood that smeared on his hand on his pant leg.

He notices that Daryl right arm is just limply hanging there. He grabs Daryl's right hand and pulls it out in front of him. Daryl watches him with a worried scowl.

"Can you feel this?" He squeezes his hand and Daryl shakes his head with a frown. Jon lets go and Daryl's arm flops back down beside him.

"How long ya been like this, Daryl?"

Daryl looks up at him and something about his face doesn't look quite right to him.

"te…t'n minehs," Daryl growls low in his throat and looks down quickly, his face reddening.

Jon sighs and turns away, running a hand through his short hair, realizing what this probably is. He turns back to Daryl abruptly.

"Look at me." Daryl looks up at him with a miserable expression on his face, "can you smile?" Daryl looks at him strangely for a second before his left eye widens with realization of why he's asking. Jon watches as Daryl smiles and sees only the left side respond, the other side remains unmoved.

_Shit._

"Alright, time to go." He helps Daryl onto his feet and he tightens his grip around his ribs as Daryl's right leg nearly gives out underneath him. They make their way as fast as possible, which is still painfully slow, to Jon's truck with a heavily limping Daryl.

On the drive to the ER Jon asks the question again that he never got an answer to, that's been the loudest in his head. "What the hell happened back there?"

He hears Daryl groan and hears his head lean against the window, with a dull thump, and then he answers with the best of his ability. "'S'Merle…. Loo'in' fa drugs 'at ain' 'ere."

Jon doesn't say anything in response other than a small grunt.

The cab stays quiet for a minute or two, but the silence is broken when he hears Daryl's loud, raspy laugh feel the cab. It sounds strained. Finding it to be a little unnerving he asks, "What?"

Daryl goes quiet and looks away, hiding his face from view. "Nu'in."

_What the hell happened before I got that call?_

Jon glances at Daryl then back at the road and presses his foot down harder on the accelerator. Daryl's behavior is actually kind of freaking him out a little.


End file.
